CENTENNIAL  SERMONS 


ON   THE    HISTORY    OF 


THE  CENTER  CONGREGATIONAL  Crap, 


MERIDEN,     CONN., 


PREACHED    IN    THAT    CHURCH 


SUNDAYS,    OCTOBER    IST    AND    220,    1876, 


EDWARD      HUNGERFORD, 


PASTOR   OF   THE   CHURCH. 


HARTFORD: 

PRESS  OF  THE  CASE,  LOCKWOOD  &  BRAINARD  COMPANY. 
I877. 


SERMON. 


ZECHARIAH  4:10.  "For  who  hath  despised  the  day  of  small 
things?" 

I  AM  going  to  lead  you  back,  my  friends,  this  after- 
noon, to  the  day  of  small  things.  In  a  very  hasty 
way — altogether  too  hasty  a  way,  I  propose  that  we 
follow,  through  nearly  one  hundred  and  fifty  years, 
the  path  which  the  feet  of  your  fathers  have  worn 
into  the  soil,  until  that  path  brings  us  to  this  place 
where  we  worship  to-day. 

It  seems  to  me  especially  fitting  that  the  pastor  of 
this  church  should  go  back  into  those  early  years. 
The  history  of  neither  of  the  Congregational  churches 
in  this  city  can  be  complete  without  those  anteced- 
ents, out  of  which  the  life  of  both  has  sprung.  As 
two  branches  of  one  family,  now  living  apart,  but 
with  no  family  feuds  between  them,  we  hail  and  vene- 
rate a  common  ancestry,  as  we  hold  to  one  and  the 
same  Congregational  polity,  in  which  we  serve  one 
Lord. 

But  more  than  this  :  I  should  not  be  true  to  the 
position  which  your  love  assigns  me,  as  pastor  of 
this  church,  if  I  were  to  forget  that  the  small  begin- 
nings of  all  the  church  life  in  all  Meriden  centered  a 
century  and  a  half  ago  in  a  place  not  far  from  this 
spot  ;  that  it  was  all  removed  hither  soon  after  the 


2012350 


close  of  the  first  quarter  of  a  century ;  so  that  right 
around  this  old  homestead  cluster  the  traditions  of 
over  a  hundred  and  twenty  years.  Hither  your 
fathers  and  grandfathers  and  great-grandfathers  have 
turned  their  faces  Sabbath  after  Sabbath,  from  gene- 
ration to  generation.  Here,  within  the  sound  of  my 
voice,  a  whole  line  of  pastors,  in  unbroken  succes- 
sion, has  preached  the  gospel.  First,  Hall,  then 
Hubbard,  and  Willard,  and  Ripley,  and  Hinsdale, 
and  Perkins,  and  Stevens,  and  so  on  down  the  line. 
To  this  place,  in  the  olden  time,  the  bodies  of  your 
fathers  and  your  mothers  were  brought  for  the  last 
service  on  earth,  before  they  were  borne  to  that  wind- 
swept graveyard  on  yonder  hill,  or  to  that  still  nearer 
one  under  the  trees.  On  this  very  spot  many  of  you 
who  no  longer  worship  here,  were  baptized ;  and  here 
many  of  you  stood  when  you  first  named  the  name 
of  Christ.  Around  this  place  have  gathered,  in  the 
last  century  and  a  quarter,  the  rumors  and  excite- 
ments of  our  country's  great  and  terrible  wars,  and 
the  news  of  many  battles  has  been  discussed  in  this 
center,  to  which  the  people  gathered  in  all  times  of 
great  commotion.  Here  great  questions  of  public 
policy  have  been  discussed  from  the  pulpit,  and  the 
discussion  has  been  prolonged  by  the  people ;  while 
around  these  very  doors  -the  passions  of  men  have 
raged  in  open-handed  violence,  over  which  at  last 
right  has  triumphed  and  peace  has  spread  her  wings. 
Oh,  sacred  spot !  Oh,  holy  and  hallowed  memories ! 
Lift  up  your  heads,  dear  friends,  in  the  just  pride  of 
such  traditions,  and  fail  not  to  honor  the  very  dust 
whereon  your  church  is  built  as  dust  consecrated  by 


5 

the  feet  which  have  trodden  it,  and  by  the  stirring 
memories  which  history  has  written  in  it  for  ever. 

Let  us  turn,  then,  to  the  day  of  small  things. 

On  the  closing  Sunday  of  October,  one  hundred 
and  forty-seven  years  ago  this  month,  at  the  hour  of 
morning  service,  you  might  have  seen  a  little  mixed 
company  of  young  and  elderly  people  gathering  on 
the  southwestern  slope  of  yonder  height,  which  we 
still  call  "  Meeting-house  Hill,"  and  gravely  stepping 
in  family  knots  from  under  the  trees  (which  in  this 
season  are  clothed  in  colors  caught  from  the  sunsets,) 
into  a  little  church,  only  thirty  feet  by  thirty,  no 
larger,  therefore  than  many  a  country  school-house. 
But  they  came  out  from  under  the  autumnal  glory 
into  the  glory  of  the  house  of  the  Lord.  It  was  a 
very  precious  house  to  them  :  built  out  of  hardy 
sacrifices  with  sturdy  toil. 

It  is  very  still  up  here  on  this  Sunday  morning ; 
if,  perchance,  it  is  one  of  our  gentler  October  days. 
There  has  been  no  sound  of  a  bell  to  break  the  quiet. 
Steeple  or  bell  this  house  has  none.  There  has  been 
no  clatter  of  carriages  ;  these  people  have  come  on 
foot,  or  at  best  on  horseback, — a  father  in  the  saddle, 
with  a  mother  and  child  mounted  on  the  pillion 
behind  ;  or,  perhaps,  a  father  walking  by  the  side  of 
his  horse  while  the  whole  family  cling  to  the  saddle 
and  the  mother's  skirts.  Far  away  to  the  south  the 
old  home  settlement  of  their  fathers  in  Wallingford 
street  caught  their  eyes  as  they  turned  to  enter  the 
house  of  God,  and  the  whole  country  was  bathed  in 
rest. 

Inside  the  church,  these  fathers  and  mothers,  in 
i* 


plain  homespun,  or  possibly,  in  case  of  some  mother 
— if  the  vanity  of  the  world  and  the  temptation 
of  so  public  a  place  were  too  much  to  be  resisted 
— in  a  silk  gown  which  had  been  her  mother's,  were 
ranged  on  benches,  the  women  on  one  side  and  the 
men  on  the  other,  in  grave  rows,  waiting  in  silence 
for  the  service  to  begin. 

In  that  service  there  is  neither  organ  nor  choir. 
The  singing  is  congregational.  The  whole  service  is 
simple  and  earnest,  consisting  of  prayers  and  hymns 
and  spiritual  songs,  and  the  preaching  from  a  text. 

I  was  going  to  say — together  with  the  reading  of  the 
word — but  it  is  a  singular  fact  that  at  this  time  "  in 
New  England  reading  a  chapter  in  the  Bible,"  as  a 
set  form,  "  in  public  worship,  was  looked  upon  as  a  long 
step  in  the  direction  of  a  liturgy  ;"  and  our  fathers 
hated  liturgies  as  a  relic  of  popery.  "  Dr.  Hopkins, 
who  ventured  upon  the  dangerous  feat  (of  reading  the 
Scriptures  in  public  worship),  during  his  ministry  in 
Western  Massachusetts,  (1743 — 1769)  brought  on 
himself  a  storm  of  opposition." 

It  was  a  small  beginning,  but  to  one  who  has  seen 
anything  of  the  frontier  life  of  our  national  growth, 
the  picture  which  I  give  you  here  is  only  the  oft-re- 
peated story  of  the  first  church  built  in  many  a  new 
settlement,  during  the  past  two  hundred  years,  with 
like  toil,  and  in  like  simplicity,  and  holding,  for  a 
shorter  or  longer  period,  a  like  simple  worship.  There 
is,  however,  this  difference.  At  that  time  the  primi- 
tive character  of  worship  was  insisted  on  as  matter 
of  principle.  The  circumstance  and  show  of  our 
modern  worship  have  won  their  way,  through  much 
opposition,  against  the  older  methods. 


These  people  who  sit  waiting  in  this  October  still- 
ness for  the  service  to  begin,  are  people  of  other 
habits,  and  other  thoughts  in  many  respects,  from 
ourselves.  We  differ  from  them  in  some  things  which 
touch  the  religious  life,  and  in  some  of  these  things  we 
differ  for  the  worse.  But,  after  all,  we  are  more  like 
them  in  religion  than  in  anything  else.  To  the  essen- 
tials of  their  religious  faith,  and  to  the  spirit  of  their 
church  polity,  and  to  their  ideas  of  religious  liberty,  we 
still  hold.  But  in  matters  of  state  the  change  has  been 
revolutionary.  These  fathers  and  mothers  of  ours 
are  true  and  loyal  subjects  of  King  George  the  second. 
They  are  Englishmen  in  near  descent,  and  are  proud 
of  being  under  the  English  king. 

The  mother  country  is  the  center  of  their  civil  life 
and  thought,  and  in  the  prayer  which  will  soon  go  up 
to  heaven,  our  gracious  sovereign  the  king  of  these 
colonies  will,  no  doubt,  be  conscientiously  and  loyally 
remembered. 

The  republic  has  not  yet  been  born.  The  Declara- 
tion of  Independence  is  still  nearly  fifty  years  in  the 
dim  future,  not  yet  thought  of  by  one  of  these  loyal 
subjects  of  the  throne,  as  even  a  remote  possibility. 
The  wise  policy  of  the  adviser  of  King  George  in 
fostering  the  trade  of  the  colonies,  and  avoiding  taxa- 
tion, was  delaying  the  day  of  struggle,  and,  although 
in  discussion  about  matters  of  royal  prerogative,  and 
rights  of  trade,  the  jealousy  of  England  was  some- 
times manifested  in  hinted  fears  lest  by  fostering  the 
numbers  and  wealth  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  colo- 
nies they  "  were  creating  formidable  antagonists  to 


8 

English  industry,  and  nursing  a  disposition  to  rebel- 
lion," nevertheless,  at  this  time  neither  rebellion  nor 
a  republic  had  been  born  in  the  thought  even  of  the 
colonies.  At  this  moment  the  thoughts  of  these 
fathers  went  in  politics  little  beyond  such  matters,  as 
the  attempt  of  England  here  in  Connecticut,  to  per- 
petuate the  English  laws  of  inheritance  in  favor  of 
the  oldest  son  ;  or,  in  religion,  they  were  occupied  with 
the  church  difficulty,  now  going  on  among  their  neigh- 
bors in  Guilford,  over  the  Rev.  Thomas  Ruggles ;  or 
in  politics,  again,  with  the  strife,  at  that  time  prolonged 
in  Massachusetts,  between  the  General  Assembly  and 
the  Crown  about  the  salary  of  the  governor  whom 
England  sent  over  to  look  after  her  interests  in  that 
colony. 

If  I  seem  to  go  out  of  my  way  to  speak  of  these 
things  here,  it  is.  because  the  simple  mention  of  the 
date  at  which  this  church  began  its  life  conveys  noth- 
ing to  our  minds  except  the  element  of  time.  That 
which  concerns  us  is  to  know  what  those  fathers  were 
thinking  of,  and  how  they  lived  in  the  days  of  small 
things.  We  must  connect  the  date  with  the  social, 
political,  and  religious  circumstances  which  alone  con- 
stituted the  founding  of  a  church,  an  important  event, 
and  which  introduce  us  to  the  daily  life  of  the  people 
we  commemorate. 

In  regard  to  religion,  these  fathers  stood  on  the  eve 
of  great  events  which  were  powerfully  to  affect  their 
religious  life. 

Previous  to  this  time  our  churches  had  been  much 
engaged  with  the  forms  of  church  government.  But 
history  tells  us  that  both  in  this  country  and  in  Eng- 


land,  the  spirit  of  piety,  and  the  practical  religious 
life  had  greatly  declined. 

One  of  your  former  pastors,  Mr.  Perkins,  says,  we 
may  conclude  with  almost  entire  certainty,  that  Meri- 
den  did  not  differ  much  in  these  respects  from  the 
rest  of  New  England.  But  a  change  was  coming. 
One  month  later,  that  is,  in  November  of  this  same 
year,  John  Wesley,  in  England,  then  twenty-six  years 
old,  joined  his  brother  Charles  at  Oxford,  where  the 
Holy  Club  was  formed,  and  the  foundations  of  that 
great  movement  which  has  made  Wesley's  name  re- 
vered and  loved  throughout  the  Christian  world,  were 
baptized  by  the  name  of  Methodist.  Another  man, 
who  was  destined  to  exert  a  mighty  influence  on  our 
American  churches,  George  Whitefield,  lacked  at  this 
time,  but  one  month  of  being  fifteen  years  of  age, 
and  in  eleven  years  more,  or  in  1740,  at  the  early  age 
of  twenty-six,  he  was  to  preach  to  vast  crowds  in  the 
cities  and  villages  of  Massachusetts,  Rhode  Island, 
and  Connecticut.  Here  also,  in  this  same  month  of 
October,  in  this  little  church  on  Meeting  House  Hill, 
or  more  likely  from  the  steps  in  front  of  it,  owing  to 
the  crowds  which  everywhere  came  together  when  he 
spoke,  he  was  to  stir  the  religious  thought  and  heart 
of  Meriden. 

One  more  man,  whose  name  was  to  be  identified 
with  the  great  religious  awakening,  soon  to  come  over 
the  churches,  Jonathan  Edwards,  was  also  at  this  time, 
and  in  this  month  of  October,  twenty-six  years  old. 
Two  years  earlier,  he  had  been  settled  at  Northamp- 
ton, where,  under  his  preaching,  was  to  begin  only  six 
years  from  the  founding  of  our  church,  that  series  of 


10 

revivals,  wnose  waves  rolled  to  and  fro  through  our 
churches  for  seven  years,  and  on  the  full  tide  of  which 
\Yhitefield  preached. 

So  much  for  the  place  of  this  little  company  of- 
morning  worshipers  in  the  political  and  religious 
history  of  our  land.  As  to  their  material  and  social 
circumstances,  they  were  for  the  most  part  plain 
farmers,  who  themselves  or  their  fathers,  toward  the 
close  of  the  previous  century,  or  about  fifty  years 
before,  had  begun  to  occupy  lands  in  what  is  now 
the  town  of  Meriden.  For  such  families  as  lay  in 
the  southern  half  of  our  town,  the  church  at  Wal- 
lingford  had  been  the  nearest  place  of  worship.  The 
way  was  long,  the  roads  miserable,  so  that,  with  the 
increase  of  settlements  in  this  section,  a  separate 
place  of  worship  became  a  necessity.  In  1 724,  "  the 
north  farmers,"  i.  e.  those  in  this  section,  which  was 
then  within  the  limits  of  Wallingford,  were  permitted 
by  special  vote  in  Wallingford  town  meeting,  to 
"hire  a  minister  for  four  months  this  winter  on  their 
own  charge."  Thus  one  hundred  and  fifty-two  years 
ago  our  fathers  held  their  first  regular  preaching 
services.  In  the  following  year,  1725,  they  formed 
themselves  into  a  separate  ecclesiastical  society  under 
the  name  of  Meriden.  For  two  years  more  they 
maintained  preaching  only  in  the  winter,  and  that  in 
private  houses.  In  summer  they  could  go  down  to 
Wallingford.  In  1727  this  little  church  on  the  hill 
was  built.  So  lately  as  the  twenty-second  of  this 
present  month  of  October,  1729.  these  worshipers 
had  now,  at  length,  organized  themselves  into  a 
Christian  church  on  a  day  specially  set  apart  as  a 
day  of  fasting  and  prayer. 


II 

Thus  slowly,  step  by  step, — thus  wearily  and  with 
sacrifice, — thus  earnestly  and  devoutly,  did  our  fath- 
ers plant  themselves  here  as  a  Christian  community, 
the  center  of  which  was  evermore  to  be  the  Christian 
church.  They  were  the  men  who  had  cleared  away 
the  forests  for  the  first  cultivated  farms,  and  they 
were  clearing  them  still.  Selecting  what  seemed  to 
them  the  most  promising  sites  for  future  homes,  they 
had  built  and  were  still  building  their  houses  in  what 
was  only  fifty  years  before  a  wilderness,  lying  dan- 
gerously remote,  on  account  of  Indian  wars,  from 
the  settlements  at  Wallingford  on  the  one  side  and 
Hartford  on  the  other. 

The  surroundings  of  the  little  meeting-house  were 
still  wild.  It  was  perched  up  there  on  the  hill  far 
away  from  any  of  the  centers  into  which  our  fathers 
of  Meriden  had  settled.  Looking  down  from  it  the 
eye  swept  a  large  territory  in  every  direction,  which 
was  then  without  a  village,  and  must  have  been  mostly 
covered  with  forests,  through  which  rough  roads  led  to 
distant  and  widely  separated  clusters  of  farm-houses. 
Broad  Street  was  probably  at  that  time  without  a 
house.  Over  all  of  what  we  call  the  older  part  of 
Meriden,  thickly  crowded  now  with  dwellings,  stores, 
public  buildings,  and  manufactories,  there  was  noth- 
ing to  mark  the  site  of  the  future  city.  To  the 
east,  around  those  swampy  lands  which  lie  south 
of  the  Middletown  road,  half  way  between  us  and 
the  mountains,  lay  a  little  settlement,  which,  taking 
its  name  from  the  swamp,  was  called  "  Dogs'  Misery," 
to  note  the  fact  that  in  those  dense  thickets,  wild 
animals,  taking  refuge,  were  able  to  baffle  the  dogs  of 


12 

hunters  in  their  pursuit,  or  turned  upon  them  when 
driven  to  bay  and  tore  them  to  death. 

Far  away  to  the  north,  on  the  Old  Colony  road,  a 
number  of  farmers  had  settled,  beyond  the  present 
glass  works,  up  as  far  as  the  Old  Stone  House  which 
first  bore  the  name  of  Meriden.  In  that  section 
there  were  people  enough  to  make  an  important 
move.  Fourteen  persons  signed  a  petition,  which, 
touching  so  large  a  matter,  had  to  be  addressed  "  To 
the  Honorable,  the  Governor  and  Council  and  house 
of  representatives,  in  General  Cort  assembled,  in  his 
Majesties  colony  of  Connecticut,  att  New  Haven,  8th 
of  October,  1724."  The  people  represent  that  they 
"are  compelled  to  drive  unruly  cattell  nere  6  or  9 
miles "  before  they  can  find  a  pound.  They  pray 
"  that  there  may  be  order  for  a  pound  near  ye  Meri- 
den or  Stone  House,"  and  for  this  they  solemnly 
aver  that  they  will  "  ever  pray."  It  is  to  be  hoped 
they  got  the  pound.  To  the  southwest  also  there 
was  a  settlement,  at  Hanover,  which  had  been  laid 
out  into  village  lots  as  early  as  1689.  Down  in  the 
valley  at  the  Corner,  or  in  what  was  then  called 
Pilgrims'  Harbor,  there  was  also  the  beginning  of  a 
settlement. 

The  distribution  of  these  little  groups  of  farmers 
at  remote  quarters  of  the  town,  had  made  the  ques- 
tion of  the  location  of  the  first  meeting-house  one  of 
great  difficulty.  Discussion  ran  high, — the  interests 
of  the  several  sections  were  hard  to  adjust.  But, 
strangely  enough,  as  it  seems  to  us,  in  view  of  the 
present  distribution  of  population,  neither  the  Cor- 
ner, nor  yet  Hanover,  nor  the  farmers  of  the  north, 


13 

were  strong  enough  to  overrule  the  then  thriving 
community  of  "Dogs'  Misery."  It  won  the  day. 
The  Center  had  no  existence  and  was  not  taken  into 
the  account.  The  timbers  were  gathered  on  the 
southwestern  slope  of  the  hill ;  but  those  who  con- 
tended for  a  more  westerly  location  brought  their 
teams  in  the  night,  and,  with  something  of  Yankee 
fun  and  grit  mixed  with  the  work,  dragged  the  timbers 
over  the  little  brook,  which  still  runs  at  the  western 
foot  of  Meeting-house  Hill,  to  a  point  near  the  Avery 
Hall  place  on  Curtiss  street.  They  showed  their  grit 
and  they  had  their  fun  ;  but  the  very  men  and  teams 
which  had  sweated  at  the  work  through  the  night, 
had  to  sweat  the  next  day  over  the  work  of  drawing 
the  timbers  back  again.  We  do  not  learn  that  any 
feud  was  perpetuated  from  this  discussion. 

The  little  congregation  worshiped,  and  grew  in 
the  humble  church,  during  twenty-eight  years,  from 
the  time  of  its  building.  There,  without  fires  in  the 
cold  winters,  and  through  long  services,  the  good  wo- 
men sat  patiently  wrapped  in  furs  and  mufflers,  while 
the  men  stamped  their  feet  to  keep  them  warm.  To 
have  heated  a  church  would  have  been  a  desecrating 
luxury.  It  would  have  been  a  soft  piety  that  could 
not  endure  any  and  all  degrees  of  temperature  in  the 
house  of  God.  So  the  wind  swept  over  the  little 
building,  and  the  snow  piled  its  drifts  around  it  until 
the  spring  came  with  its  first  robin  song,  and  the 
good  people  basked  in  the  sun  again,  before  the  door. 
Then  the  summer  flung  out  its  leaves  over  the  forest, 
and  October  turned  them  to  crimson  and  yellow  and 
brown  again,  and  the  autumnal  ingathering  of  fruit 
2 


14 

closed  with  its  Thanksgiving  feast,  in  the  scattered 
farm-houses,  where  broad-mouthed  fire  places,  piled 
high  with  logs,  filled  the  kitchens  "and  parlors  with 
light  that  shone  out  through  the  windows  into  the 
night,  while  the  flames  roared  and  crackled  up  the 
chimney  throat,  and  apples,  and  cider,  and  nuts,  and 
country  games  went  round,  until  the  tallow-dipped 
candles  burned  low  in  the  sockets  of  the  candlesticks, 
and  the  ashes  were  raked  over  the  still  glimmering 
heaps  of  coals  to  keep  the  fire  till  morning. 

The  number  of  those  who  were  first  joined  in  the 
covenant  of  the  church  was  fifty-one,  of  whom  twen- 
ty-one were  men  and  thirty  were  women. 

The  names  which  appear  in  this  list  are  for  the 
most  part  names  which  have  been  and  still  are  identi- 
fied with  the  history  of  the  town — the  names  of  your 
fathers — the  Royces,  the  Yales,  the  Merriams,  the 
Fosters,  Collins,  and  Hough,  and  Ives,  and  Way,  and 
Curtiss,  and  Camp.  The  number  of  families  in  the 
place  in  1724,  five  years  before  the  organization  of 
the  church,  were  only  thirty-five,  and  it  had  probably 
not  much  increased  in  1729.  As  you  have  seen  that 
those  thirty-five  families  were  divided  between  some 
four  different  sections  of  the  town,  there  could  have 
been  nothing  really  approaching  the  pretentions  of 
a  village,  throughout  the  present  area  of  Meriden. 

The  little  church  grew.  Mr.  Perkins,  whose  his- 
torical sketch,  prepared  with  great  care,  and  published 
in  1849,  will  always  be  the  starting  point  for  the  study 
of  our  history,  says  that  so  far  as  he  can  learn,  for 
"year  after  year,  not  more  than  one  or  two  were  united 
to  the  church  annually."  But  in  this  he  is  mistaken. 


The  record  shows  that  in  1730,  twenty-seven  were  re- 
ceived, and  in  1731,  at  least  eight,  arid  though  the 
record  is  confused  at  this  point,  perhaps  nineteen 
were  received  in  the  latter  year.  During  the  thirty- 
six  years  following  the  organization  of  the  church,  two 
hundred  and  fifty-three  persons  were  added  to  the  list 
of  the  original  membership.  This  is  an  addition  of 
seven  a  year,  as  an  average  for  the  whole  period.  It 
seems  that  the  little  church,  in  common  with  many 
others  in  New  England,  felt  the  great  wave  of  revival 
in  the  times  of  Edwards  and  Whitefield  ;  for  I  find 
in  the  year  1741,  after  Whitefield  had  preached  in  the 
fall  of  1740,  on  the  steps,  thirty-one  were  united  to 
the  church. 

But  we  dare  not  leave  out  of  the  account  of  this 
rapid  growth,  the  severe  and  strong  labors  of  that  first 
pastor  of  the  church,  whom  we  shall  find,  if  we  go 
back  to  that  October  service,  at  which  we  began  our 
history  ;  standing  in  the  first  month  of  his  settlement, 
small  of  stature,  a  youth  of  twenty-one  years,  to  whom 
it  is  to  be  given  to  see  a  strong  church  rise  out  of 
these  small  beginnings,  whose  work  it  is  to  be,  touched 
by  the  Spirit  of  God  and  of  liberty,  to  lead  this  young 
flock  out  of  the  wilderness  and  through  the  storm  into 
a  larger  place. 

Theophilus  Hall  was  a  man  of  powerful  intellect, 
and  of  large  heart.  As  I  have  searched  among  old 
papers,  it  has  been  an  inspiration  to  come  into  con- 
tact with  the  earnestness,  and  the  vigor  of  this  man, 
who  began  to  preach  a  hundred  and  fifty  years  ago. 
If  you  picture  your  early  fathers,  dear  friends,  as  sitting 
in  listless  attitudes,  dozing  through  long  discourses — 


i6 

up  there  on  the  hill — you  are  wide  of  the  mark.  The 
uninteresting  preacher,  if  you  have  ever  had  him, 
was  of  later  date.  This  man's  words  flashed  ;  his 
short,  quick,  clean  cut  sentences  went  to  the  mark. 
His  familiar  style  with  its  "don't,"  and  "won't,"  and 
"can't,"  and  its  "you'll,"  makes  it  easy  to  listen,  while 
his  sentiments  belong  more  to  a  future  age  than  to 
the  one  in  which  he  speaks.  Apt  illustrations  and 
sudden  surprises  give  zest  to  the  flow  of  his  thought. 
He  is  direct,  personal,  and  eloquent  I  do  not  hesi- 
tate to  say,  that  if  he  stood  in  one  of  our  pulpits  to- 
day, he  would  stand  there  as  a  thoroughly  popular 
preacher,  whom  men  would  love  to  hear  preach,  and 
would  love  to  criticise  when  he  should  be  through 
preaching.  He  knew  no  fetters.  He  believed  in  re- 
ligious liberty  as  distinguished  from  ecclesiastical 
bonds  and  oppressions  ;  he  believed  in  civil  liberty 
and  was  bold  to  speak  it ;  he  believed  in  liberty  of 
thought ;  and  he  believed  and  did  not  fear  to  preach 
that  doctrine  of  love  which  goes  down  into  the  heart 
of  the  practical  Christian  life — a  life  like  Christ's.  Of 
those  who  talk  much  of  religion,  but  know  little  of  the 
practical  part  he  cries — "  Such  are  they  that  are  mak- 
ing the  religion  of  Jesus  Christ  to  consist  only  in  a 
heated  imagination,  in  trances,  visions,  and  enthusias- 
tic flights  and  raptures ;  that  are  affecting  party  names 
and  terms  valuing  themselves  thereon,  imposing  their 
own  sentiments  upon  others,  and  stigmatizing  those 
that  can't  conform  to  them  or  pronounce  their  darling 
Shibboleths."  "No  better  are  they  that  are  casting 
a  slight  upon  holiness  and  sanctity,  good  works  and 
obedience  to  the  commands  of  Christ  as  absolutely 


17 

necessary  terms — prerequisite  to  our  acceptance  with 
God.  Such  talk  as  this,  is  it  not  against  the  crown 
and  dignity  of  heaven  ?"  To  those  who  cry  against 
works  and  preach  a  passive  faith,  he  answers :  "  Is  not 
believing  as  much  doing  and  acting  as  any  other  duty  ? 
I  know  not  why  the  word  (works)  is  re- 
stricted to  bodily  exercise The  love 

of  God  and  repentance  of  sin  are  as  much  works  and 
acts  of  obedience  as  any  external  duty  whatsoever. 
And  is  not  faith  the  same  ? 

"  Saving  faith  is  the  submission  of  the  whole  man 
to  Jesus  Christ  as  our  Lord  and  Master." 

And  here  are  things,  touching  the  subject  of  faith, 
I  have  wished  to  say  and  have  never  dared  to  say 
them.  He  said  them  more  than  a  hundred  years 
ago.  "  There  are  those,"  says  he,  "  who  have  a  hope 
in  God,  and  if  you'll  inquire  into  the  reason  of  it 
they'll  boldly  tell  you,  'We  know  we  are  sinners, 
but  Christ  has  died  to  save  such  ;  there  is  merit 
enough  in  Him  ;  He  is  a  whole  Saviour ;  and  our 
whole  dependence  is  on  the  righteousness  and  merits 
of  Jesus  Christ.'  "  Then  turning  to  his  hearers,  he 
cries  :  "  but  you'll  say,  '  all  this  is  nothing  but  pre- 
sumption, a  false  hope  and  trust.' "  "  I  know  it  well 
enough,"  he  answers  ;  "  but  all  hope  and  trust  in 
God  will  be  no  better  if  there  is  nothing  else."  Bold 
words,  dear  friends,  but  true.  Then,  addressing  him- 
self to  one  who  asks  :  "  Is  not  this  a  legal  way  of 
justification?"  he  cries:  "I  answer,  legal  or  illegal, 
it  matters  not,  if  it  be  the  way  the  Gospel  establishes 
and  Christ  and  His  apostles  preached." 

Do  you  wish  for  more  ?  "A  principle  of  obedi- 
2* 


18 

ence,  a  divine  conformity,  is  absolutely  necessary  to 
acceptance  with  God.  Can  it  possibly  be  otherwise  ? 
Are  there  any  contraries  in  Nature  greater  than  sin 
and  holiness  ?  Can  a  swinish  nature,  whose  whole 
delight  is  in  the  filth  of  sin,  relish  the  pure  joys  of 
heaven  ? " 

His  plainness,  and  his  great  liberality,  and  his 
eloquence,  all  come  out  in  the  sermon  on  the  death 
of  Rev.  Isaac  Stiles,  of  North  Haven,  preached 
June  ist,  1760.  In  speaking  of  the  righteous,  he 
says  :  "  What  great  blessings  to  the  world  such  are. 
All  men  are  not  blessings  to  the  world  ;  some  are 
the  foremost  judgments  and  the  greatest  plagues  on 
the  earth.  Their  lives  are  prolonged  in  judgment, 
and  it  is  a  mercy  to  the  world  when  they  are  taken 
out  of  it."  Then,  after  illustrating,  he  goes  on : 
"  But,  O,  'tis  good  men — not  such  as  wear  religion 
only  as  a  cloak  to  cover  their  deformities  ;  or  make 
use  of  it  as  an  engine  of  cruelty,  or  a  handle  to  serve 
vile  purposes  ;  nor  every  party  zealot  that  thinks 
himself  holier  than  others,  is  for  calling  fire  from 
heaven  upon  all  that  differ  from  him  ; — but  right, 
down  honest,  iipright  men,  that  are  the  greatest  bless- 
ings under  heaven ....  These  are  the  gems  and  pearls 
of  the  earth."  And  in  the  same  sermon,  this  burst 
of  eloquence  on  death:  "What  joy  to  leave  the 
stormy  ocean  and  enter  into  port !  To  come  oft"  from 
the  field  of  battle  with  trophies  of  victory !  Much 
greater,  yea,  joy  unspeakable  and  full  of  glory,  to 
leave  all  the  troubles  of  this  world  for  peace  and  joy 
in  the  heavenly  !  Blessed  soul,  that  exchanges  cor- 
ruption for  incorruption ;  this  crazy  body  for  one 


19 

furnished  like  Christ's  glorious  body  ;  and  this  mor- 
tal life  for  a  crown  of  glory  that  fadeth  not  away ! 
'  O,  death,  where  is  thy  sting  !' ' 

Great  soul !  No  wonder  the  people  loved  him  ;  no 
wonder  the  church  grew ;  no  wonder  in  1755  the  house 
was  too  small ;  and,  after  twenty-eight  years,  they 
built  the  preacher  a  larger  church,  near  where  this  one 
now  stands, — a  church  which  weathered  the  storms 
of  the  Revolution,  and  looked  down  on  the  changes 
of  Meriden  life  and  population  for  seventy-six  years, 
No  wonder,  too,  that  one  who  spoke  so  well,  but  so 
keenly,  found  his  share  of  enemies,  and  criticisms, 
and  pastoral  trials.  No  matter  how  conciliatory  his 
course,  no  matter  how  tenderly  he  spoke, — and  his 
words  were  sometimes  like  the  words  of  a  lover, — 
there  were  those  who  would  gladly  have  thwarted 
him  in  his  efforts.  When  Dr.  Dana,  pastor  of  the 
mother  church  in  Wallingford,  was  put  under  the  ban 
of  the  consociation,  and  a  bitter  attempt  was  made 
to  throw  him  out  of  his  pulpit,  on  the  charge  of 
heretical  doctrine,  the  pastor  of  this  church  stood  by 
him  and  invited  him  to  his  pulpit.  For  this  act  of 
liberty,  as  well  as,  it  would  seem,  out  of  opposition  to 
the  sentiments  of  the  pastor,  an  attempt  was  made 
to  call  Mr.  Hall  to  account  before  the  association  of 
the  county.  I  find  on  the  record  an  entry  of  a  very 
full  church  meeting  on  the  24th  day  of  May,  1762, 
to  the  effect  that,  "  after  solemn  prayer  and  supplica- 
tion made  to  Almighty  God,  the  complaint  against 
the  pastor  of  this  church,  given  to  the  association 
of  New  Haven  County,  and  signed  by  Ebenezer 
Prindle,  Gideon  Ives  junior  and  Noah  Yale,  was  laid 
before  the  church." 


2O 

It  seems  probable  that  the  complaint  before  the 
association  urged  against  Mr.  Hall  heretical  interpre- 
tations of  the  gospel  and  the  crime  of  exchanging 
with  his  neighbor  of  the  Wallingford  church.  The 
Meriden  church  met  the  case  promptly,  stood  by  its 
pastor,  declared  in  the  "  most  unanimous  manner  "  that 
the  complainants  had,  for  a  great  number  of  years  past, 
appeared  uneasy  and  dissatisfied  with  the  preaching 
of  the  word  ;  had  been  wont  to  take  it  up  in  a  sense 
contrary  to  the  acceptation  of  the  people  in  general ; 
that  there  was  no  just  ground  for  their  complaint ; 
that  it  seemed  designed  to  disturb  the  peace  and 
quiet  of  the  church  ;  and  that  the  preaching  of  Mr. 
Dana  was  acceptable  and  agreeable.  Thus  flatly  did 
the  church  rebuke  the  men  who  looked  for  an  occa- 
sion to  break  the  strength  of  the  pastor.  The  church 
went  before  the  association  and  the  affair  seems  to 
have  been  dropped. 

The  records  of  this  period  are  very  scanty,  and  are 
much  taken  up  with  matters  of  discipline,  which  in 
our  earlier  history  was  more  faithfully  administered 
than  now,  and  took  cognizance  of  matters  such  as  we 
should  be  very  likely  to  pass  by.  Lest  some  here 
might  possibly  be  nearly  enough  related  to  the  per- 
sons concerned  in  one  curious  case  of  discipline  to 
be  disturbed  at  the  mention  of  their  full  names,  I 
will  only  say,  that  in  the  year  1745  there  was  a 
complaint  against  certain  members  whose  Christian 
names  were,  Enos,  Benjamin,  John,  Samuel,  Noah, 
David,  and  another  David,  who  were  all  suspended 
on  account  of  disorders  committed  in  the  night  time. 
The  case  of  these  persons,  bearing  a  remarkable  array 


21 

of  scripture  names,  came  under  the  cognizance  of  the 
civil  courts  and  judgment  was  pronounced  against 
them.  From  the  church  record,  and  from  a  curious 
old  paper  which  has  come  into  my  hands  through  one 
of  the  families  of  the  parish,  but  which  had  never 
been  understood  until  the  correspondence  between_it 
and  the  church  record  was  discovered,  it  appears  that 
Enos  and  Benjamin  and  John  and  Samuel  and  Noah 
and  the  two  Davids  had  been  guilty  of  making  night 
hideous  "by  ringing  bells  and  blowing  horns  on  the 
highway."  The  neighborhood  took  offense  at  it.  It 
is  possible  there  was  some  political  bearing  to  their 
action,  though  it  may  have  been  only  one  of  those 
frolics  which  were  liable  to  be  treated  as  breaches  of 
the  peace.  They  were  convicted  in  court,  and  the 
church  record  quaintly  says,  that  Enos  and  Noah  and 
one  of  the  Davids,  before  the  church,  acknowledged 
that  said  actions  were  neither  justifiable  nor  com- 
mendable, and  they  were  really  sorry  that  they  had 
any  hand  in  it  and  promised  that  they  would  do  so  no 
more  The  church  took  them  back,  but  Benjamin, 
Samuel,  and  the  other  David,  justified  their  conduct, 
and  their  case  was  sent  up  to  the  association,  from 
which  august  body  it  came  back  with  advice  to  the 
church  to  receive  them  if  they  would  "  promise  to 
behave  orderly  for  the  time  to  come,"  otherwise  to 
hold  them  under  suspension.  The  church  followed 
the  advice,  but  I  have  not  yet  learned  whether  the 
three  obstinate  ones  ever  gave  in. 

How  hard  it  was  for  the  pastor  to  adjust  all  the 
affairs  of  the  young  but  growing  church,  appears 
from  the  course  of  some  of  the  people  in  connection 


22 

with  the  erection  of  a  new  meeting-house.  It  took 
five  years  to  discuss  the  location  of  that  building. 
Mr.  Hall  was  evidently  a  man  of  affairs,  and  was  the 
owner  of  a  very  considerable  property.  He  lived  on 
the  spot  where  his  direct  descendant,  Mr.  Avery 
Hall,  now  lives,  in  a  house  of  which  the  present  one 
is  said  to  be  as  nearly  as  possible  a  copy.  He  built 
also,  for  his  son,  the  large  house  over  the  way  from 
us,  on  the  corner  of  Broad  and  Main  streets,  long 
used  for  a  hotel ;  and  he  gave  the  acre  of  ground  on 
which  we  stand  for  the  erection  of  the  new  church. 
But  there  was  jealousy  of  the  pastor's  influence. 
Some  evidently  thought  it  would  not  do  to  build  on 
ground  owned  by  the  minister.  Some  advantage 
might  accrue  to  him.  The  acceptance  of  the  gift 
might  bring  him  some  larger  claim  upon  the  people, 
and  increase  his  power.  A  party  sprang  up  in  oppo- 
sition, but  the  day  was  again  carried  against  the 
opposition.  Thus  pestered  and  troubled,  you  will  not 
wonder  that  the  great  heart  of  Theophilus  Hall  grew 
weary,  and  that,  in  an  ordination  sermon  preached  at 
Berwick,  (Matthew  Merriam's  ordination,  Sept.  25, 
1765,)  only  less  than  two  years  before  he  died,  he 
should  have  poured  out  his  soul  in  words  like  these, 
on  the  trials  and  the  joys  of  a  pastor's  life :  "  With 
respect  to  the  people,  innumerable  difficulties  arise 
from  this  matter ;  there  is  so  much  weakness  and 
ignorance,  so  much  pride  and  self-conceit  among 
them,  so  many  different  tastes  and  opinions,  and 
their  state  and  circumstances  so  very  various,  that  it 
is  almost  impossible  rightly  to  divide  the  word  of 
truth  among  them.  If  you  conform  to  one,  you  may 


23 

be  sure  you  will  offend  another ;  and  if  you  preach 
the  truth,  it  may  be  you  will  displease  them  all .... 
Some  are  too  knowing  to  be  taught,  others  too  proud 
to  be  reproved,  and  how  many  are  there  disposed  to 
find  fault  ?  They  look  upon  their  ministers  with  a 
jealous  eye,  and  are  apt  to  think  the  least  failing  in 
them  an  unpardonable  crime. 

"  How  often  is  this  the  case,  ,that  one  or  the  other 
of  these  dilemmas  or  the  like  are  retorted  upon  us 
by  the  people  ?  If  we  take  no  care  of  our  secular 
interest,  we  are  idle  and  indolent  men.  If  we  preach 
anything  new  to  them,  'it  is  heresy;'  but  if  we  don't, 
then  we  are  charged  with  old  sermons.  If  we  are 
familiar  with  our  people,  they  will  despise  us  ;  but  if 
we  keep  them  at  a  proper  distance,  then  we  lord  it 
over  God's  heritage.  'John  came  neither  eating  nor 
drinking,  and  they  say  he  hath  a  devil.  The  Son  of 
Man  came  eating  and  drinking,  and  they  say,  Behold 
a  man  gluttonous  and  a  wine  bibber,  a  friend  of 
publicans  and  sinners.'  " 

Alas  !  dear  friends,  that  thirty  odd  years  with  a 
single  people  should  have  forced  such  a  passage 
from  such  a  man.  And  yet  the  dear  little  church 
had  stood  by  him  until  it  had  grown  with  him  into 
strength.  From  a  membership  of  fifty  it  had  risen 
to  be  a  strong  church.*  From  the  little  meeting- 
house on  the  hill  the  congregation  had  removed  to  a 
new  and  substantial  house  in  the  future  center  of  the 
growing  population. 

The  hard  struggle  of  the  day  of  small  things  was 

*  In  1 770  the  membership  was  185  and  the  familes  in  the  parish  123. 


24 

over.  The  voice  which  for  thirty-seven  years  had 
sounded  a  ringing  note  of  liberty,  and  had  fearlessly 
proclaimed  the  need  among  men  of  a  divine  life,  is  at 
last  hushed.  The  first  pastor  is  dead.  In  the  early 
spring  of  1 767,  they  bore  him  through  the  scenes  of 
his  toil,  over  the  little  brook,  up  the  steep  hill-side, 
past  the  site  of  the  little  church,  to  the  bury  ing- 
ground  on  yonder  southern  slope.  There  they  laid 
him  down  and  covered  him  with  the  sod,  and  on  the 
red  sandstone  slab  over  his  grave  they  wrote  these 
words : 

IN   MEMORY 

OF 

THEOPHILUS    HALL, 

Pastor  of  the  church,  who,  having  for  thirty-seven 

years  discharged  the  duties  of  his  function  with 

distinguished    fidelity    and    accomplished 

Christian  life,  the  uniform  disciple 

of  Jesus  Christ, 

DECEASED  MARCH  230,  1767,  IN  THE  SIXTIETH  YEAR 
OF  HIS  AGE. 

"  They  that  be  wise  shall  shine  as  the  brightness  of 
the  firmament." 

We  need  no  account  of  that  funeral.  Over  that 
grave  all  contention  was  hushed.  In  it  all  bitterness 
was  buried.  Love  wove  around  it  a  garland  of 
memories  brought  from  all  their  rural  homes,  and  the 
benediction  of  God's  peace  was  upon  it.  For  more 
than  a  hundred  years  the  grass  has  freshened  and 


25 

faded  over  it ;  for  more  than  a  hundred  years  the 
winter  wind  has  swept  it  and  the  summer  rains 
have  moistened  it.  To-day  the  slab  which  commem- 
orates that  life  of  our  early  history  lies  neglected 
and  broken  on  the  ground,  desecrated  by  the  sport 
of  heedless  passers-by.  But  the  lives  that  were 
made  better  by  that  life,  the  tears  that  were  dried, 
and  the  mourning  hearts  that  were  comforted,  and 
the  wayward  ones  that  were  saved  by  it,  are  praising 
it  still  and  will  praise  it  for  ever.  How  mightily  that 
life  and  that  vigorous  thought  have  influenced  the 
growing  future  of  this  place,  even  down  to  the  pres- 
ent generation,  we  know  not.  But  I  am  proud,  dear 
friends,  to  have  been  instrumental,  this  day,  in  bring- 
ing the  memory  of  it  out  of  the  forgetfulness  of  the 
past  and  re-consecrating  it  in  the  heart  of  this  gene- 
tion. 


SECOND   CENTENNIAL   SERMON 

PREACHED    ON    THE 

ONE  HUNDRED  AND   FORTY-SEVENTH  ANNIVERSARY 
OF    THE    ORGANIZATION    OF   THE 

CONGREGATIONAL   CHURCH 

IN     MERIDEN, 
SUNDAY,     OCTOBER      220,     1876. 


TEXT — REV.  3:  8. — "Behold,   I  have  set  before  thee  an  open  door,  and  no  man 
can  shut  it." 


SERMON. 


ONCE  more,  my  friends,  let  us  try  to  get  a  picture 
of  the  popular  life  to  which  our  church,  by  God's  help, 
about  the  year  1770,  was  still  supplying  moral  and 
spiritual  power.  The  church  is  nothing  without  the 
people.  The  kingdom  of  heaven  comes  to  society 
busied  with  schemes  of  national  development  and  of 
political  government.  On  this  troubled  sea  of  human 
interests,  with  its  clashing  waves,  the  church  of  God 
may  seem  only  a  driven  boat,  with  quivering  mast  and 
storm-reefed  sail,  tossed  at  the  mercy  of  innumerable 
waves ;  but  through  the  storm  and  under  the  cloud 
she  is  God's  pilot-boat  to  individuals  and  nations. 

Over  what  kind  of  seas  is  our  little  church,  at  the 
time  of  the  death  of  its  first  pastor,  helping  to  guide 
the  people  ?  There  have  been  great  changes  since 
that  22d  of  October,  of  the  year  1729,  when,  on  a  day 
set  apart  for  fasting  and  prayer,  your  fathers  entered 
into  the  covenant  of  a  Christian  church.  Thirty- 
eight  years  have  passed,  during  which  the  nation  and 
the  parish  with  it  have  been  growing  rapidly  in  num- 
bers and  in  material  wealth.  The  last  two  or  three 
years  of  the  life  of  Hall  had  also  been  spent  among 
scenes  of  political  excitement,  under  which  the  nerve 
of  the  nation  first  quivered  and  then  strung  itself  for 
battle.  The  lenient  policy  of  King  George  the  Second 

3* 


30 

had  been  succeeded  by  the  oppressive  policy  of  the 
mad  King  George  the  Third.  Taxation  by  sea  was 
to  be  followed  by  taxation  on  American  soil,  which 
our  fathers  declared  subversive  of  American  liberties. 
It  is  an  old  story,  but  these  Centennial  sermons  would 
be  tame  without  it.  It  was  God's  narrow  way  to  the 
open  door.  On  the  27th  of  February,  1765,  British 
legislation  for  the  Colonies  brought  the  stamp  act 
through  the  House  of  Commons.  On  the  eighth  of 
March  following,  the  House  of  Lords  agreed  to  it 
without  "  amendment,  debate,  protest,  division,  or 
single  dissentient  vote,"  and  George  the  Third  signed 
it  on  the  22d  day  of  March,  just  two  years  and  one 
day  before  the  death  of  that  "  zealous  advocate  for 
civil  and  religious  liberty,"  Meriden's  first  pastor  ; 
who,  therefore,  lived  long  enough  to  witness  the  recoil 
of  a  stunned  nation  at  the  reception  of  the  news  of 
that  act,  and  to  see  the  rebound  as  the  nation  sprang 
to  the  work  of  resistance.  He  heard  often,  no  doubt, 
the  cry  of  "  Liberty,  Property,  and  No  stamps,"  which 
rang  on  the  streets  even  in  the  mouths  of  children. 
He  was  a  sharer  in  the  excitement  here  in  Connecticut, 
when  those  five  hundred  farmers  and  freeholders, 
mounted  on  horseback,  armed  with  freshly  peeled 
white  cudgels,  forced  the  stamp  officer,  Ingersoll,  on 
the  broad  Wethersfield  street,  to  resign  his  office, 
throw  up  his  hat,  and  three  times  shout,  "  Liberty 
and  Property." 

What  part  our  Meriden  fathers  took  in  all  this,  we 
have  little  left  on  record  to  tell  us  ;  but  we  know  that 
the  great  tide  wave  did  not  pass  over  these  hills  and 
through  these  valleys  without  gathering  force  as  it 


swept  by  our  ancestral  homes,  and  the  doors  of  the 
new  church  on  Meriden  green.  We  know  that  when, 
in  January,  1766,  the  Sons  of  Liberty,  of  New  York, 
sent  out  their  proclamation  declaring  that  they  would 
go  to  the  last  extremity,  and  venture  their  lives  and 
fortunes,  effectually  to  prevent  the  stamp  act,  their 
resolution  was  speedily  brought  to  Connecticut,  and 
the  town  of  Wallingford,  of  which  this  Meriden  parish 
then  formed  a  part,  in  a  meeting  in  which,  no  doubt, 
the  Meriden  pastor  and  people  participated,  voted  a 
fine  of  twenty  shillings  on  any  inhabitant  "  that  should 
use  or  improve  any  stamped  velum  or  paper  ;"  and  the 
organization  of  Sons  of  Liberty  formed  in  the  town  of 
Wallingford  and  Meriden  declared,  with  their  breth- 
ren of  New  York,  that  they  were  prepared  "  to  oppose 
the  unconstitutional  stamp  act,  to  the  last  extremity, 
even  to  take  the  field."  It  would  be  a  precious  memo- 
rial of  those  brave  spirits  who  nursed  the  fire  which, 
ten  years  later,  flamed  out  in  the  Declaration  of  Inde- 
pendence, if  I  were  able  here  to  produce  some  of 
the  words  which  fell  from  the  pulpit  on  the  Sundays 
which  followed  those  stirring  weeks  down  to  the  time 
when  Parliament,  one  year  before  Mr.  Hall's  death, 
repealed  that  act.  He  who  could  speak  so  eloquently 
and  boldly  must  have  spoken  most  eloquently  and 
boldly  in  those  last  days,  from  which  he  was  so  soon  to 
enter  into  rest.  But  I  find  no  word  of  it  all.  In  the 
lull  which  followed  the  intense  excitement  of  that  first 
great  struggle  of  the  people,  he  passed  away,  and  left 
the  church  to  plunge  into  a  contest  with  the  ecclesi- 
astical powers  around  it,  wherein  our  fathers  showed 


32 

that  ecclesiastical  freedom  was  not  less  precious  to 
them  than  civil  liberty. 

That  controversy  over  the  installation  of  the  Rev. 
John  Hubbard,  the  second  pastor  of  this  church,  has 
gone  into  history,  along  with  the  celebrated  contro- 
versy in  Wallingford  over  the  ordination  of  Dr.  Dana. 
It  was  more  than  a  controversy  between  a  majority 
and  a  minority  in  a  country  church.  It  was  a  con- 
test between  the  rights  of  the  local  church  under  the 
congregational  system,  and  associations  and  consocia- 
tions ruling  over  the  churches  with  authority.  It  was 
a  continuation  of  the  struggle,  in  these  Connecticut 
churches,  between  Congregationalism  pure  and  sim- 
ple and  a  Presbyterian ized  Congregationalism  set 
forth  by  the  Saybrook  Platform  (in  the  year  1708,) 
and  established  by  act  of  the  General  Assembly  of 
these  Connecticut  colonies  as  the  basis  of  a  quasi 
State  church.  The  roots  of  the  Hubbard  controversy 
strike  deep  into  religious  liberty.  Things  were  ripe 
here,  as  you  know  from  my  first  discourse,  for  the 
breaking  out  of  an  already  disaffected  party,  when,  in 
the  October*  following  the  death  of  Theophilus  Hall, 
the  church  invited  John  Hubbard,  of  New  Haven, 
then  about  forty  years  of  age,  to  preach  for  four  weeks 
on  probation.  The  appearance  of  that  preacher  on 
the  scene  was  the  signal  for  action.  Mr.  Hubbard 
was  reputed,  as  reputation  then  went,  to  be  unsound. 
He  could  not  have  preached  more  than  one  Sunday, 
whenf  forty-seven  members  of  the  society  petitioned 
their  fellow-members  to  advise  with  either  association 

*  October  5th,  1767.  T  October  i2th,  1767. 


33 

of  New  Haven  County,  as  was  then  the  custom,  on 
the  subject  of  a  candidate  for  the  pastoral  office.  But 
the  church  was  shy  of  associational  interference.  It 
meant  to  choose  its  own  pastor. 

On  the  2d  of  November,  having  probably  heard 
the  eight  probationary  sermons,  it  voted,  forty-two 
to  twenty-one,  in  favor  of  inviting  Mr.  Hubbard  "  to 
the  pastoral  office."  The  minority  appealed  to  the 
association.  The  association  summoned  the  accused 
pastor-elect  before  it  ;  the  pastor-elect  denied  the 
jurisdiction  of  that  ecclesiastical  court,  and  the  asso- 
ciation replied  by  taking  away  his  license.  The  con- 
sociation with  its  higher  authority  confirmed  this  act. 
So  John  Hubbard  preached  without  a  license. 

The  church  entered  on  its  record  a  declaration 
made*  "  by  a  full  vote,"  the  preamble  of  which  throws 
light  on  the  state  of  things  among  the  churches  at 
that  time.  "  Whereas,"  it  says,  "  there  has  much 
controversy  and  dispute  existed  in  this  Colony  of 
late  concerning  ecclesiastical  discipline,  and  particu- 
larly concerning  the  authority  of  councils  and  the 
rights  of  particular  churches,  we  think  it  expedient  to 
declare  explicitly  our  purpose  to  '  stand  fast  in  the 
liberty  wherewith  Christ  hath  made  us  free.'  "  "  We 
understand,"  the  declaration  goes  on  to  say,  "  that  no 
consociation  has  right,  by  the  constitution,  to  take 
cognizance  of  or  intermeddle  with  any  of  the  affairs 
or  doings  of  any  particular  church  upon  the  desire  or 
application  of  private  members  of  said  church,  unless 
said  church  first  consented  thereto  or  had  excom- 

*November  aoth,  1767. 


34 

municatecl  said  private  members We  declare 

ourselves  to  be  a  Congregational  church,  and  we 
understand  the  constitution  as  allowing  and  securing 
to  us  the  full  enjoyment  of  the  rights  of  Congrega- 
tional churches,  especially  the  right  of  exercising 
discipline  by  ourselves  and  choosing  our  own  pastor." 

People  had  got  into  a  troublesome  way  of  talking 
about  rights  in  those  days,  of  British  navigation  laws 
and  stamp  acts.  The  Wallingford  matter,  too,  had 
put  these  men  on  their  guard.  They  held  to  the 
value  of  Congregationalism  as  a  system  of  church 
liberty.  Their  dead  pastor  had  taught  them  that. 
They  believed  in  the  rule  of  majorities  ;  and  they 
had  heard  in  the  last  thirty-seven  years  too  free  a 
discussion  of  Christian  doctrine  to  be  alarmed  by  the 
cry  of  heresy.  That  declaration,  flung  out  on  the 
2Oth  of  November,  was  a  warning  to  the  consocia- 
tion, which  was  already  on  the  move. 

On  the  2Qth  of  December,  the  month  following 
that  declaration,  the  parish  of  Meriden  was  the  scene 
of  lively  discussion  in  every  family,  at  the  early  morn- 
ing meal,  and  by  every  fireside  in  the  evening.  On 
that  day  a  council  of  churches  met  at  the  call  of  the 
majority  to  ordain  John  Hubbard  ;  and,  on  the  same 
day,  the  Consociation  of  New  Haven  County  met 
also,  here  in  Meriden,  to  prevent  the  ordination. 
For  four  days  these  two  ecclesiastical  bodies  held 
sessions,  discussed,  resolved,  remonstrated,  and  grew 
warm  over  against  each  other,  until  at  last  the  council 
which  the  majority  had  called  "considered  the  broken 
state  of  the  society,"  and  were  of  opinion  it  was  not 
best  to  proceed  to  ordination.  But  the  trouble  was 
not  over. 


35 

In  the  following  March,*  in  a  protest  which 
sounds  very  much  like  1776,  our  church  re-asserted 
its  privileges.  That  document,  which  sets  forth  its 
grievances  and  declares  its  withdrawal  from  the  con- 
sociation, is  worthy  of  a  full  reading  here  were  there 
time  for  it.  It  begins  by  pointing  to  the  relation  of 
this  trouble  to  that  in  Wallingford  ;  refers  to  the  in- 
terference of  the  consociation  at  the  time  when  the 
council  met  in  Meriden  ;  declares  it  does  not  know 
what  is  further  intended,  but  supposes  that  unless  the 
church  desist  from  its  choice  of  a  pastor,  it  is  to  be 
treated  as  the  Wallingford  church  was — the  minority 
to  be  declared  the  church,  and  they  themselves  scat- 
tered "as  the  ashes  of  the  martyrs  in  the  air,  and  their 
bones  at  the  grave's  mouth."  They  declare  that  they 
see  no  safety  but  in  flight.  They  therefore  renounce 
the  consociation,  and  assert  that  they  will  pay  no  re- 
gard to  its  authority.  Then  within  a  weekf  they  offer 
to  the  minority  to  give  up  their  preference  for  Mr. 
Hubbard,  "  though  his  preaching  and  labors  are  very 
agreeable  to  us,"  provided  the  opposers  of  Mr.  Hub- 
bard's  settlement  "join  with  the  major  part  of  this 
church  in  asserting  and  maintaining  that  Christian 
liberty  which  we  so  highly  esteem,  ....  renounce 
the  consociation  ....  until  said  consociation  gives 
up  their  unwarrantable  claims."  The  entry  of  the 
scribe,  Benjamin  Rice,  at  the  close  of  this  proposition 
shows  how  things  were  going :  "  The  above  proposal 
was  universally  assented  to  by  the  major  part  and  it 
was  wholly  rejected  by  the  minor  with  contempt." 


*  March  22d,  1768.  t  March  28th. 


36 

The  minority  persevered  and  carried  the  case  before 
the  Colonial  Assembly.*  The  majority  in  its  turn 
called  a  second  council  having  two  ministers  from  this 
Colony  of  Connecticut,  one  of  whom  was  the  Rev. 
James  Dana,  (who  was  also  scribe  of  the  council,)  and 
four  from  outside  the  colony.  Of  these,  the  Rev.  Dr. 
Ezra  Styles,  of  Newport,  afterwards  President  of  Yale 
College,  was  brother-in-law  of  Mr.  Hubbard.  The 
others  were  the  Rev.  Joseph  Lothrop,  of  Springfield, 
Rev.  Robert  Buck,  also  of  Springfield,  and  the  Rev. 
John  Ballentine.  This  council  met  on  the  2Oth  day 
of  that  always  lovely  month  of  June  (1769).  Before 
it  appeared  a  committee  of  the  association  on  behalf 
of  the  minority,  and  before  it  also  appeared  the  minor- 
ity itself,  with  a  protest.  The  discussion  continued 
with  protest,  propositions,  and  rejections,  until  the 
majority  of  the  church — declaring  that  they  do  not 
believe  the  difficulties  can  ever  be  adjusted,  and  that 
they  have  exhausted  all  expedients — close  with  an  ex- 
pressed conviction  that  if,  as  had  been  proposed,  a 
mutual  council  agreed  on  by  the  parties  in  the  church 
should  meet  and  advise  Mr.  Hubbard  not  to  settle, 
even  that  would  not  bring  peace  ;  but  on  the  con- 
trary, "  we  never  shall  be  as  well  united  as  now,  but 
fear  our  unhappy  dispute  will  terminate  in  the  great 
interest  of  the  Church  of  England."  How  far  that 
last  dark  hint  about  the  formation  of  an  Episcopal 
Church  in  the  parish  of  Meriden  may  have  influenced 
the  minds  of  the  reverend  ministers  on  that  council, 
we  can  only  guess.  But  the  council  was  convinced, 

*May,  1768. 


37 

and  on  the  22d  of  June,  granted  the  petition  of  the 
church,  and  ordained  the  pastor  of  its  choice.  Both 
sides  in  the  controversy  had  shown  the  persevering 
spirit  of  the  times. 

What  the  views  of  Mr.  Hubbard  were,  I  have  not 
as  yet  been  able  to  ascertain  ;*  but  from  such  hints  as 
I  am  able  to  gather,  nothing  in  his  theology  would 
render  him  objectionable  to  any  church  of  ordinary 
intelligence  at  the  present  day.  The  contest  was  due 
to  the  progress  of  thought  in  a  time  when  men's 
minds  were  thoroughly  roused — when  there  was  a 
great  tendency  to  free  discussions,  and  when  with  the 
chafing  at  political  bondage  there  came  a  new  and 
fresh  assertion  of  the  liberty  of  the  old  Congregational 
way  against  the  restraints  of  a  half  way  Presbyterian- 
ism.  Such  times  would  necessarily  involve  conflict. 

The  discussion  continued  in  the  colony  after  the 
council  had  decided  the  case.  A  portion  of  the  church 
withdrew  and  maintained  separate  worship.  But  the 
magnetism  of  men  is  often  mightier  than  the  preju- 
dices of  men.  The  fine  qualities  of  the  new  pastor 
forced  themselves  upon  the  hearts  of  the  opposers  ; 
his  kindness,  his  charity,  and  his  courtesy  won  them 
all  back.  Animated  and  interesting  as  a  preacher, 
his  freedom  of  thought  possessed  a  charm  for  that  age 
of  liberty,  and  his  "unusually  pleasant  and  benignant 
countenance,"  remembered  still  in  1848  by  the  sur- 
vivors of  his  ministry,  disarmed  malice,  if  malice  there 
was,  or  dissipated  innocent  but  unnecessary  fears. 
Moreover,  the  time  when  he  entered  upon  his  minis- 

*  For  Mr.  Hubbard's  Confession  of  Faith,  since  discovered,  see 
Appendix. 

4 


38 

try  was  auspicious.  It  was  a  time  pregnant  with  that 
future,  in  which  men's  thoughts  turned  from  the 
smaller  strifes  of  parishes  to  the  concerns  of  a  nation 
passing  through  the  baptism  of  blood.  The  years 
were  speeding  rapidly  on  to  the  revolution,  with  its 
sacrifices,  its  homes  mourning  over  the  slain,  and  its 
long  watching  for  the  fulfillment  of  patriotic  hopes. 
These  years  were  favorable  for  such  a  man  to  win  the 
hearts  of  the  people. 

It  is  a  significant  fact  which  comes  to  my  knowledge 
just  at  the  moment  of  writing  these  lines,  that  per- 
haps the  only  person  living,  who  was  born  in  Meriden 
during  Mr.  Hubbard's  ministry,  an  old  lady,  residing 
near  Aurora,  Illinois,  a  hundred  years  of  age  this  fall, 
very  naively  said  to  a  great-grandson  of  our  John 
Hubbard,  that  her  father's  family  found  it  convenient 
to  remove  from  Meriden  while  she  was  very  young. 
As  she  was  born  in  1776,  and  circumstances  point  to 
the  tory  leanings  of  her  father,  it  will  readily  be  un- 
derstood how  convenient  it  was  for  the  family  to  take 
its  departure. 

Mr.  Hubbard  lived  to  see  the  close  of  that  war  and 
to  share  in  the  rejoicings  over  a  victorious  peace. 
But  at  about  this  time  he  was  thrown  from  his  sleigh 
and  so  severely  injured  that  he  ceased  preaching.  He 
lingered  among  an  affectionate  people  some  three 
years  longer,  when  he  died  and  was  buried,  under  the 
chill  winds  of  a  November  day,  in  the  new  cemetery 
beneath  the  trees  to  the  south  of  us,  the  land  of  which 
he  himself  had  deeded  to  the  town  of  Meriden.  There, 
at  the  head  of  one  of  the  graves,  those  who  revere  the 
past  may  find  a  quaint  old  free-stone  slab  on  which 
his  people  thus  delicately  commemorated  his  virtues : 


39 
IN  MEMORY 

OF    THE 

REV.    JOHN    HUB  BARD,   A.    M . , 

Pastor  of  the  Church  in  Meriden,  who 
DIED  Nov.  i8TH,  1776,  ^ETAT  60. 

He  was  a  rational  and  serious  Christian,  exemplary 
for  gravity,  integrity,  piety  and  benevolence.     He 
was  an  able  minister  of  the  New  Testament  and 
beloved  by  all  his  flock  for  his  faithfulness 
and  apostolic  diligence  in  the  work  of  the 
ministry,  and  for  the  prudence,  kind- 
ness, and  humanity  which  adorned 
his  manners  and  rendered  him  a 
most  excellent  pastor." 

By  the  side  of  that  weather-worn  slab  of  sand- 
stone stands  another,  which  commemorates  his  wife, 
Mary,  who  died  March  2,  1806,  having  that  day 
completed  her  7oth  year.  Of  her  the  sculptor's 
chisel  says :  "  An  early  Christian  profession  was 
adorned  by  her  living  to  Christ.  With  a  rare  tender- 
ness of  conscience,  she  kept  in  view  the  glory  of  God 
in  all  the  duties  of  her  relations  and  conditions.  Re- 
marking the  Providence  which  mimbereth  the  hairs 
of  our  heads,  she  improved  by  every  incident."  Then, 
with  a  touch  of  sympathy,  the  chisel  tenderly  adds  : 
"  The  comforts  of  vital  piety,  which  she  sensibly  en- 
joyed, were  subject  to  intervals  of  extreme  mental 
darkness."  "  Light  is  sown  for  the  righteous." 

If  I  were  to  search  for  some  words  with  which  to 


40 

close  this  notice  of  a  charitable  life,  I  could  hardly 
find  any  more  worthy  of  our  heeding,  as  members  of 
a  Christian  church  and  as  neighbors  and  friends,  than 
these,  taken  from  the  only  sermon  of  Mr.  Hubbard's 
which  has  come  into  my  hands.  It  is  a  pungent  but 
kindly  one  on  the  sin  of  backbiting,  preached  March 
1 2th,  1776,  a  hundred  years  ago.  After  defining  that 
vice  as  consisting  "  in  speaking  ill  of  others,  slander- 
ing and  reproaching  of  them  in  their  absence,  and 
consequently  when  they  have  no  opportunity  to  ex- 
culpate or  vindicate  themselves,"  and  after  saying  that 
"  Besides  the  unreasonableness  of  this  practice,  it  is 
a  mean  vice,  having  its  special  deformity  as  it  betray- 
eth  a  soul  that  is  either  wholly  devoid  of  every  prin- 
ciple of  ingenuity  and  friendship,  or  inattentive  to  the 
great  and  sacred  law  of  love  and  charity,"  he  closes 
by  making  this  application:  "The  subject  remindeth 
us  also  of  the  importance  of  cultivating  a  spirit  of 

universal  candor,  charity,  and  love Then  shall 

we  be  disposed  to  put  on,  as  the  elect  of  God,  bowels 
of  mercies,  kindness,  humbleness  of  mind  ;  then  will 
the  God  of  love  and  peace  dwell  among  us." 

Before  the  death  of  John  Hubbard,  the  Rev.  John 
Willard  had  been  settled  as  colleague  pastor  in  June, 
1786.  I  am  able  to  add  almost  nothing  to  what  oth- 
ers have  written  in  regard  to  him  and  his  pastorate. 
His  work  here  fell  in  that  unfortunate  period  of  finan- 
cial depression  and  moral  deterioration  which  follows 
upon  long  and  exhausting  wars.  It  is  not  likely  that 
the  population  increased  rapidly.  He  was  an  anima- 
ted preacher,  of  very  tall  and  slender  figure,  and  a 
sermon  which  has  come  into  my  hands,  preached  in 


41 

a  neighboring  parish,  on  the  training  of  children,  was 
by  request,  I  believe,  of  that  parish,  put  into  print. 

On  his  settlement,  the  old  division  in  the  church 
showed  itself  afresh,  and  he  seems  to  have  had  a 
troubled  ministry.  Again  the  doctrinal  discussion 
was  renewed  as  under  Hubbard.  It  is  a  fact,  having 
a  bearing  no  doubt  on  his  work,  that  the  First  Baptist 
church  in  Meriden  was  organized  in  the  midst  of  that 
controversy,  two  months  after  his  settlement,  and  the 
Episcopal  church  was  organized  before  the  close  of 
his  ministry.  It  is  said  that  great  numbers  either 
deserted  public  worship  altogether  or  transferred 
themselves  to  other  denominations.  The  old  yeast  of 
discontent  was  doing  its  work.  The  history  of  the 
previous  twenty  years,  the  progress  and  diversity  of 
opinion  in  the  church,  the  conflict  between  the  new 
and  the  old,  had  made  a  rendering  of  old  church  ties 
inevitable,  and  these  denominations  offered  the  occa- 
sion for  a  result  which  was  already  being  precipitated. 
Discouraged  by  causes  which  were,  no  doubt,  beyond 
human  control,  Mr.  Willard  committed  what,  I  fear, 
was  the  error  of  resigning  his  post,  and  was  dismissed 
in  1 802.  By  that  event,  for  the  first  time  the  pastoral 
relation  in  this  church  was  violently  broken,  and, 
since  that  day,  no  pastor  has  rounded  out  the  work 
of  his  whole  life  among  you.  One  has  come  back 
to  die  after  an  absence  of  years,  and  another  has 
been  brought  here  and  buried ;  but  pastorates  have 
been  increasingly  brief,  and  no  pastor  has  died  in  the 
harness.  Has  it  always  been  the  preacher's  fault  ? 

I  learn*  that  in  the  ten  years  ending  in  1795,  all  of 

*  Manuscript  sermon  of  Mr.  Hinsdale. 

4* 


42 

which  fell  in  Mr.  Willard's  ministry,  the  number  of 
additions  to  the  church  were  sixty-five  or  an  average 
of  six  and  one-half  per  year. 

We  must  not  leave  the  last  century,  my  friends, 
without  a  glimpse  at  the  state  of  society  in  that  period 
which  we  love  to  think  of  as  the  romantic  period  of 
American  history.  In  the  last  quarter  of  the  last 
century,  the  drift  of  population  pointed  more  and  more 
towards  the  formation  of  an  important  center  along 
the  line  of  our  present  Broad  street.  Here  the  church 
had  been  built ;  here,  across  the  way,  the  house  which 
afterwards  became  the  half-way  tavern  for  the  days 
of  stages,  had  been  built ;  on  the  hill,  where  Edward 
Miller's  house  now  stands,  the  Rev.  John  Hubbard 
built  and  lived  in  a  house  which  has  since  been  re- 
moved to  the  east  side  of  South  Broad  street,  and  is 
occupied  by  our  friend,  Mr.  Sanderson.  The  high- 
way which  forms  the  present  street  in  front  of  the 
church  had  been  laid 'out,  and  farther  north,  at  the 
head  of  what  is  now  Liberty  street,  Mr.  Willard,  the 
third  pastor,  built  what,  for  the  time,  was  a  sufficiently 
stately  house,  the  same  square-roofed  building,  with 
projecting  upper  story,  which  has  been  since  removed 
to  a  point  on  Broad  street,  opposite  Mr.  Bassett's. 
The  place  of  burial,  too,  had  been  changed  from  the 
sunny  hill-side  to  the  cemetery  just  south  of  us. 
These  private  houses  with  the  church,  ranging  along 
the  wide  but  rough  highway,  already  formed  a  center 
towards  which  the  population  drifted,  until  the  open- 
ing of  the  railroad. 

The  spirit  of  progress  and  change  was  working  out 


43 

the  greater  future  of  Meriden  and  the  whole  land. 
The  survivors  of  those  subjects  of  the  British  king, 
who  first  gathered  in  the  church  built  on  this  spot, 
had  now  become  free  citizens  of  a  free  country.  The 
colony  of  Connecticut  had  become  a  State.  He  that 
"openeth  and  no  man  shutteth,  and  shutteth  and  no 
man  openeth,"  had  set  before  them  an  open  door. 

The  people  who  came  into  church  on  those  Sun- 
days in  the  latter  portion  of  the  last  century,  were 
men  and  women  of  deep  convictions,  of  heroic  cour- 
age, of  mighty  endurance,  and  of  earnest  life.  They 
were  earnest,  but  not  so  grave,  I  imagine,  as  some 
of  us  have  pictured  them.  The  stir  of  those  days 
was  favorable  to  vivacity  of  manners,  and  the  Yankee 
loved  a  strain  of  wit  then  as  well  as  now.  In  society 
there  was  a  certain  courtliness  which  we  have  drop- 
ped. The  dress  was  more  pretentious,  or  seems  more 
so  to  us.  The  short  clothes,  with  long  hose,  buckles 
at  the  knees,  and  buckled  shoes,  the  cocked  hats  and 
full  white  or  gray  wigs,  which  were  worn  in  public, 
give  an  air  of  stateliness  to  our  fathers,  but  they  did 
not  forget  to  be  playful.  Their  homes  were  plain  but 
cheerful,  with  the  opening  fields  around  them  in 
summer  and  with  the  blazing  wood  fires  in  winter. 
Luxuries  had  not  found  their  way  into  domestic  life. 
The  women  did  house-work.  The  oppression  of  trade 
by  England  had  stimulated  home  industry.  Spin- 
ning-wheels for  wool  and  flax  hummed  lullabys  to 
children  in  the  broad  kitchens,  and  hand-looms  clat- 
tered through  the  winter  days  as  they  wove  the  yarn 
or  the  thread  into  homespun.  The  homes  of  minis- 
ters were  not  always  sober.  Doctor  Styles,  the  same 


44 

that  formed  one  of  the  council  which  ordained  John 
Hubbard,  tells  us  in  his  manuscript  diary  at  Yale 
College,  of  a  donation  party  at  his  house  in  Newport, 
where  the  women  had  a  spinning  match,  at  which 
there  were  thirty-seven  spinning-wheels  going  at  one 
time. 

There  was  a  grand  break  down  of  denominational 
lines,  at  least,  that  day.  Among  the  spinners  were 
two  Quakers,  six  Baptists,  and  twenty-nine  of  his  own 
society.  Besides  the  spinners  were  sixteen  reelers 
to  reel  the  yarn.  Sixty  persons  dined  at  the  parson- 
age. What  a  humming  and  buzzing!  Do  you  suppose 
those  fifty  and  more  women  made  no  music  at  the 
pastor's  house  ?  The  fathers  and  mothers  of  '76  were 
earnest  but  not  over-staid  people.  They  were  pro- 
gressive folks.  The  world  moved  fast  in  the  last 
quarter  of  the  last  century. 

In  the  houses  there  were  no  carpets.  Even  in 
1802,  there  was  but  one  in  the  town.  Down  to  the 
year  1789  there  had  never  been  owned  here  anything 
more  nearly  approaching  a  pleasure  wagon  or  travel- 
ing buggy,  than  the  three  two-wheeled  rude  chaises 
without  top,  which  had  hitherto  constituted  the  turn- 
out of  the  town.  People — men  and  women,  young 
and  old — rode  on  horseback  from  house  to  house.  I 
have  heard  my  mother,  who  was  born  in  1800,  tell  of 
the  merry  times,  when  young  men  came  to  take  young- 
ladies  to  ride  behind  them  on  pillions,  and  dashed 
away  two  upon  a  horse  over  Torringford  hills.  Women, 
as  well  as  men,  were  good  riders  in  those  days.  In 
a  country  where  there  were  only  rough  roads,  every 
body  learned  to  mount  a  horse. 


45 

Mr.  Perkins  tells  us  that  down  to  the  year  1802, 
there  was  not  here  a  single  road  that  was  rounded  up  as 
we  make  roads  now.  When  the  Hartford  and  New 
Haven  Turnpike  through  the  center  of  the  town  was 
completed,  about  the  year  1800,  it  was  considered  a 
"  vast,  wonderful,  and  curious  work."  People  came  to 
see  it,  just  as  they  afterwards  flocked  to  see  the  first 
railroad.  The  completion  of  such  roads  was  a  neces- 
sary preliminary  to  those  splendid  stage  lines  which, 
down  to  1830  or  '40,  furnished  the  swiftest  mode  of 
communication,  with  their  relays,  and  their  proud 
drivers  on  rattling  coaches,  shaking  the  reins  over 
four  running  horses,  ringing  out  the  signal  note 
of  the  French  horn,  then  seizing  the  long  whip  and 
sending  the  cracking  lash  around  the  ears  of  the 
leaders,  as  coach,  passengers,  baggage,  and  mail  rolled 
down  past  the  village  houses  towards  the  half-way 
house  on  the  corner. 

The  morals  of  the  last  portion  of  the  last  century 
in  this  town  of  Meriden,  may  be  gathered  from  the 
style  of  church  discipline  and  from  the  well-known 
drinking  habits  of  society.  The  population  of  Meri- 
den in  1790  is  said  not  to  have  been  more  than  about 
nine  hundred,  and  for  that  population,  and  down  to 
1812,  there  were  not  less  than  five  and  perhaps  eight 
taverns,  all  keeping  liquors.  But  it  must  be  remem- 
bered that  the  traveling  habits  of  the  public,  in  a 
time  when  journeys  were  made  on  horseback,  and 
later  in  wagons  and  stages,  made  taverns  necessary  in 
a  place  so  favorably  situated  as  Meriden  was  for  a 
resting  point  on  the  great  thoroughfare  from  Spring- 
field and  Hartford  through  New  Haven  to  New  York. 


46 

But  the  old  tavern  with  its  bar,  its  great  room  for 
strangers  lounging  before  the  open  fire,  its  numbers 
of  all  classes  brought  together  for  a  night  away  from 
home,  with  its  practice  of  social  drinking  which  then 
pervaded  society,  with  its  story-telling,  and  its  village 
lounging — that  being  the  place  to  which  people  natu- 
rally resorted  to  hear  the  news  from  strangers,  and 
often  the  place  for  distribution  of  the  mails — the  old 
New  England  tavern  of  the  last  century  and  the 
early  part  of  this  was  not  a  promoter  of  what  we 
should  term  good  morals. 

Slavery  existed  in  a  mild  form  among  our  fathers 
of  the  last  century.  In  the  year  1790,  Connecticut 
had  two  thousand  seven  hundred  and  fifty-nine  slaves  ; 
and  even  down  to  the  year  1 840,  in  this  State  the  pro- 
cess of  gradual  emancipation  which  had  been  adopted 
here  had  still  left  us  seventeen  slaves.  Mr.  Perkins  esti- 
mates that  in  1770,  there  were  in  the  whole  town  of 
Wallingford  and  Meriden  fifty-six  slaves — an  estimate 
based  upon  the  records  of  deaths  for  thirty-eight  years. 
The  hardships  of  slavery,  bitter  enough  in  any  case, 
were  mitigated  here  in  New  England  by  the  fact  that 
the  slaves  were  household  servants  and  farm  hands, 
whose  masters  and  mistresses  did  not  themselves  dis- 
dain the  severest  toils,  so  that  the  servant  was  brought 
into  closer  contact  with  the  master. 

I  am  able  to  present  you  here  to-day  with  a  docu- 
ment which  will  make  you  realize  the  immense  differ- 
ence between  the  last  century  and  this  century  in 
respect  to  the  sacredness  of  human  personality.  It 
is  the  original  document  of  sale  of  a  negro  girl  in  this 
town  in  the  year  1750.  The  paper  was  found  in  an 


47 

old  drawer  of  the  Royce  family,  and  is  kindly  furnished 
me  by  Mrs.  Robert  Hull. 

"Know  all  men  by  these  presents  that  I  Joseph  Shailer  of 
haddam  in  the  County  of  Hartford  in  the  Colony  of  Connect- 
icut in  new  england  do  acknowledg  my  self  in  plain  and  open 
market  for  and  in  consideration  of  the  some  of  one  hundred 
and  sixty  pounds  to  have  sold  and  set  over  unto  dec  Benjamin 
Roys  of  Walingford  in  New  Haven  County  one  negro  girl 
called  violet  aged  about  three  years  to  be  the  sd  Benjamin 
Royses  slave  and  servant  and  to  his  heirs  and  asigns  during 
the  full  term  of  her  natural  life  avouching  my  self  to  be  the 
proper  and  sole  owner  of  the  sd  negro  girl  and  have  a  Right  to 
dispose  of  the  sd  negro  girl  during  the  term  of  her  natural  life 
further  I  do  here  by  Bind  my  self  and  Heirs  to  defend  and 
warant  the  sd  negro  girl  violet  to  the  sd  Roys  his  heirs  and 
asigns  against  the  lawfull  claims  of  all  persons  what  soever  as 
witness  here  of  1  hereunto  have  set  my  hand  and  seal  this  2oth 
of  April  AD  1750 

Joseph  Shailer 

Nehemiah  Pratt 

Daniel  Hoult" 

It  seems  that  deacons  of  churches,  and  ministers  as 
well,  did  not  esteem  it  a  violation  of  Christian  prin- 
ciple to  own  and  buy  and  sell  negro  girls — "violets" — 
or  negro  boys  and  men. 

Out  of  that  century  many  habits  of  society  have 
been  prolonged  into  the  present  one,  and  it  has  been  the 
task  of  the  Christian  church  here  and  elsewhere  to 
prosecute  the  work  of  eradicating  practices  which  the 
pure  gospel  of  Jesus  Christ  does  not  fail  in  the  end 
to  expose  and  condemn. 

As  its  leader  in  the  moral  and  spiritual  work  of  the 
opening  century  the  church  (Jan.  3,  1803,)  called  a 
man  of  very  different  type  from  any  who  had  gone 
before  him.  Erastus  Ripley  was  the  fourth  pastor  of 


48 

the  church.*  I  do  not  learn  that  there  was  any 
division  over  his  call  to  the  ministerial  office  here. 
There  seems  to  have  been  no  question  as  to  his 
soundness.  He  was  a  thoroughly  sincere  and  good 
man,  bold  in  denouncing  sin,  not  sparing  to  speak 
according  to  his  conviction  of  duty,  even  at  a  funeral. 
He  dealt  stout  blows  and  frequent  blows  with  the 
doctrine  of  election  and  future  punishment.  He  was 
a  strong  writer  but  a  heavy  speaker  ; — a  tall,  broad- 
shouldered,  heavy  man  who  did  not  often  smile.  In 
the  course  of  his  ministry  the  congregation  rapidly 
diminished.  Great  numbers  joined  themselves  to 
other  denominations,  and  at  one  time  it  seemed  as 
if  the  church  would  become  quite  extinct.  During 
eleven  years  he  labored  under  great  discouragements. 
For  seventy-four  years,  or  since  the  days  of  White- 
field,  it  is  not  known  that  there  had  been  a  general 
revival  of  religion. 

Out  of  a  sermon  celebrating  the  one  hundredth 
anniversary  of  the  church,  preached  by  Mr.  Hinsdale, 
Mr.  Ripley's  immediate  successor,  January  3,  1830,  I 
learn  that  the  pastor  of  the  church,  after  a  period  of 
great  mental  depression,  was  seized  with  a  strong 
conviction  that  there  was  to  be  a  revival.  The  revival 
came  and  came  in  power.  At  first  church  prayer- 
meetings  were  held  consisting  of  a  very  few  persons, 
but  "  their  numbers  were  soon  greatly  increased." 
Sinners  in  different  parts  of  the  town  were  at  length 
aroused  and  crowded  to  the  place  of  prayer.  The 
Spirit  of  God  moved  over  the  place .  bringing  one  of 

*Ordained  in  the  following  February  over  the  church,  after  a  church 
fast. 


49 

those  mighty  seasons  which  some  of  you  remember 
so  well, — in  which  stillness  and  though tf ulness  per- 
vade places  of  business  and  homes  ;  the  Word  of 
God  comes  to  hearts  with  convincing  force ;  men 
inquire  after  the  way  of  salvation  ;  sinners  are  con- 
verted a»d  Christians  are  lifted  into  a  higher  life. 
Mr.  Hinsdale  testifies  that  the  blessed  effects  of  this 
season  were  still  visible  when  he  spoke.  Such  a 
work,  after  so  long  a  period  as  that  intervening  since 
Whitefield's  time,  was  a  great  and  glorious  experience, 
and  was  no  doubt  sufficient  mightily  to  affect  the 
currents  of  life  throughout  the  town.  It  was  thought 
by  some  that  one  hundred  were  converted  in  this 
revival.  The  record  shows  sixty-five  additions  to  the 
church  in  the  year  1815,  no  doubt  in  large  part  the 
fruits  of  this  work.  But  there  was  a  reaction.  In 
1816  there  are  but  nine  persons  entered  on  the  record 
as  new  members  ;  in  1817,  none. 

Mr.  Ripley  was  dismissed  from  the  pastoral  charge 
in  February,  1822.  It  is  an  item  of  interest  that  the 
salary  at  this  period  was  only  $400.  Mr.  Ripley's 
nature  seems  to  have  been  well  adapted  to  the  strong- 
er and  severer  work  of  the  ministry,  but  he  lacked 
social  qualities.  Children  .were  afraid  of  him.  I 
trust  it  will  be  deemed  at  this  distant  day  no  lack  of 
delicacy  in  me  to  say  so.  It  is  the  testimony  of  those 
who  were  children  when  he  was  pastor  that  in  the 
homes  and  in  the  schools  children  all  feared  him.  It 
is  said  that  our  revered  brother,  now  in  heaven,  Levi 
Yale,  could  not  refrain  from  telling,  with  a  hearty 
laugh,  how  one  of  the  little  girls  in  a  district  school, 
to  whom  the  pastor  was  talking  about  dying,  turned 

5 


50 

to  him  with  a  look  of  pitiful  pleading  and  said  : 
"  Please,  Mr.  God,  let  me  live  a  little  longer."*  One 
of  the  older  members  of  this  church,  whom  we  know 
only  to  love,  will  forgive  me  if  I  tell  you  a  story. 
She  avers  that  Mr.  Ripley  made  her  tell  a  lie.  Down 
in  the  old  district  school-house  he  was  passing,  as  he 
was  wont  to  do,  along  the  benches  talking  with  the 
little  folks,  when  he  came  to  Emeline.  "  Well, 
Emeline,  I  hope  you  say  your  prayers  every  night." 
Emeline  was  in  the  habit  of  saying  her  prayers,  but 
her  conscience  told  her  very  plainly  that  she  did  not 
say  them  every  night.  She  was  too  frightened  to 
tell  the  truth  ;  so  she  whispered  out,  "  Yes,  sir."  "  I 
hope  you  tell  the  truth,  Emeline,"  said  the  solemn 
preacher;  "you  know  it  would  be  an  awful  thing  to 
tell  a  lie.  You  must  not  say  you  pray  every  night 
unless  you  do.  But  I  hope  you  do,  don't  you  ? " 
Says  Emeline,  "  Yes,  sir."  It  was  awful  to  tell  a 
lie,  but  to  her  child-mind  it  was  more  awful  still  to 
tell  the  truth  to  a  minister  who  stood  to  her  in  the 
place  of  God,  with  power  to  punish  all  little  children 
that  ever  forgot  to  say  their  prayers.  But  this  pastor, 
whom  the  children  did  not  love,  was  called  to  a  good 

*  It  was  not  so  very  uncommon  for  children  of  those  days  to  think 
the  minister  was  God.  Nor  was  it  always  a  proof  of  very  great  sanc- 
timoniousness in  the  pastor.  My  mother,  who  sat  under  that  remark- 
able and  so-called  eccentric  preacher  familiarly  known  as  Parson  Mills 
of  Torringford,  declares  that,  as  she  used  to  look  at  him  in  the  dignity 
of  the  pulpit  (for  he  was  a  man  of  great  dignity,  though  he  was  often 
amusing),  she  believed  him  to  be  God.  Our  venerable  brother,  pas- 
tor Arms,  of  Norwich,  tells  me  the  same  thing  has  happened  to  him. 
Those  who  know  his  benignant  dignity,  without  reserve,  will  not 
attribute  it  to  any  severity  of  manner. 


5* 

work.  One  such  revival  experience  as  that  of  1814 
was  worth  all  it  cost  him.  He  was  afterwards  settled 
in  the  parish  of  Goshen,  in  the  town  of  Lebanon, 
where  his  power  as  a  revival  preacher  was  also  appar- 
ent and  bore  blessed  fruit.  He  afterwards  returned 
to  this  place  and  died  here  November  16,  1843,  at  the 
ripe  age  of  seventy-three  years. 

In  the  fall  of  that  year  1822,  in  which  Mr.  Ripley 
was  dismissed,  and  in  the  month  of  November,  the 
Rev.  Charles  J.  Hinsclale  was  settled  over  a  church 
in  which  the  revival  memories  of  six  years  ago  were 
still  fresh,  and  in  which  they  were  to  be  repeated 
before  his  ministry  should  close.  The  church  had 
indeed,  in  common  with  many  in  New  England,  at 
this  time  entered  upon  a  revival  period,  marked  at 
intervals  by  great  outpourings  of  God's  Spirit.  Such 
seasons  came  under  nearly  all  the  succeeding  pastors 
and  preachers  down  at  least  to  the  year  1848,  and 
have  been  renewed  at  intervals  since.  Mr.  Hinsdale 
will  be  remembered  by  many  of  those  present  here 
as  a  man  of  engaging  manners,  thoroughly  social,  in 
which,  as  well  as  in  an  animated  pulpit  style,  his  effi- 
cacy as  a  pastor  largely  lay.  He  says  of  himself  in  his 
closing  sermon  at  Blanford,  that  the  great  fundamen- 
tal doctrines  of  the  gospel  formed  the  staple  of  his 
preaching.  His  pastorate  was  remarkably  success- 
ful ;  the  church  and  congregation  increased  ;  and  by 
his  business  management,  so  far  as  that  belongs  to  a 
pastor,  he  doubtless  helped  much  to  secure  the  out- 
ward prosperity  of  the  church  and  society.  It  was 
during  his  ministry  that,  in  the  year  1831,  this  house 
of  worship  in  its  original  form  was  erected,  after  the 


52 

old  one,  built  in  1755  just  in  front  of  this,  having 
stood  for  seventy-six  years  and  witnessed  the  growth 
of  a  prosperous  community,  had  become  unequal  to 
the  demands  of  the  times. 

That  old  church  of  Revolutionary  days,  how  pre- 
cious its  memories  had  become  !  At  first,  and  until 
1803,  without  a  steeple,  then,  for  the  first  time  of  all 
churches  here,  it  sent  the  peal  of  a  bell  over  these 
Meriden  hills — calling  to  Sabbath  worship  and  town 
meetings  ;  tolling  the  ages  of  the  dead  and  the 
solemn  march  of  funeral  trains  ;  and  ringing,  as  was 
often  the  New  England  custom,  for  the  farmers' 
nooning  and  the  evening  covering  of  fire  at  nine 
o'clock. 

It  was  built  with  great  cost,  sixty  by  fifty  feet,  with 
its  high  pulpit,  of  course,  and  its  high  single  gallery ; 
its  floor  occupied  by  great  square  boxes,  or  pews,  as 
they  were  then  called,  which  were  meant  for  times 
when  men  had  families  to  fill  big  pews  and  gloried  in 
having  them.  Around  the  front  row  of  the  gallery, 
all  the  way  around,  sat  the  great  choir,  which  had 
learned  to  sing  at  the  winter  evening  singing-school, 
and  which  was  large  enough  when  it  rose  to  embrace 
in  its  circle  the  whole  congregation. 

Such  was  the  old  church,  in  which  Mr.  Hinsdale 
preached  his  last  sermon  December  5,  1830,  the 
manuscript  of  which  lies  before  me  as  I  write.  I 
cannot  more  fitly  close  this  notice  of  him  and  his 
ministry  than  by  quoting  from  that  sermon  the  fol- 
lowing eloquent  words.  "Seventy-five  years  ago," 
said  the  preacher,  "  as  at  this  present  time,  this  house 
was  filled  with  venerable  age,  vigorous  manhood. 


53 

ardent  youth,  and  restless  childhood.  Where  are 
they  ?  Scarce  one  left  to  tell  the  tale.  Since  that 
period  two  generations  have  gone  to  join  the  congre- 
gation of  the  dead What  tender  ties  have  been 

severed  !  what  fond  expectations  laid  prostrate  in  the 
dust !  .  .  .  .  What  keen  remembrance  flits  across  the 
soul  as  we  people  again  this  congregation  with  the 
departed  !  Does  there  not  seem  to  come  a  voice 
from  these  crumbling  walls,  '  For  what  is  your  life  ? 
It  is  even  a  vapor  that  appeareth  for  a  little  time, 
then  vanisheth  away.'  " 

The  new  house  was  finished,  and  the  dedication 
sermon  was  preached  June  16,  1831.  You  remem- 
ber it  well,  as  it  stood  in  its  original  form  till  the  year 
1862,  a  period  of  thirty-one  years.  To  that  house, 
which  cost  about  seven  thousand  dollars,  it  has  in- 
terested me,  and  will  interest  you,  to  have  discovered 
the  original  list  of  subscribers,  and  to  see  from  it  in 
what  sums  the  money  was  raised,  and  to  recall  at  the 
same  moment  some  of  the  leading  men  in  the  place. 

Two  years  and  a  half  Mr.  Hinsdale  preached  in 
the  new  church  when  he  closed  his  useful  ministry  of 
eleven  years;*  and  in  the  following  winter  of  1833-4 
the  glory  of  the  Lord  filled  the  house  in  a  revival 
during  the  temporary  preaching  of  the  Rev.  William 
McLean,  from  which  it  is  thought  some  seventy  souls 
dated  their  conversion.  The  church  was  now  with- 
out a  settled  pastor  for  some  three  years,  until  the 
Rev.  Arthur  Granger  accepted  the  position  and  was 
installed  in  March,  1836.  His  brief  ministry,  which 

*  Mr.  Hinsdale  died  at  Klanford,  Mass.     He  was  killed  instantly, 
being  thrown  from  his  carriage,  October  17,  1871,  aged  76  years. 

5* 


54 

began  with  a  revival,  closed  July,  1838,  after  a  period 
of  two  years  and  four  months.  That  Granger  pastor- 
ate is  one  of  intense  interest. 

The  years  from  1837  to  1841,  when  Mr.  Van  Buren 
was  president,  were  years  in  which  the  anti-slavery 
excitement  reached  some  of  its  most  disgraceful  fea- 
tures. It  was  the  time  when  the  term,  abolitionist, 
was  a  reproach,  and  when  mob  law  and  violence,  burn- 
ing of  buildings,  and  dragging  men  through  streets 
with  ropes,  as  in  the  case  of  Garrison  in  Boston,  and 
even  killing,  were  made  arguments  to  answer  the 
logic  of  reason  and  right.  Communities  were  divided, 
many  good  men  were  conservative.  Party  politics 
and  ambition  intensified,  as  ever,  the  violence  of  the 
contest.  Here  in  Meriden,  such  men  as  Levi  Yale, 
Fenner  Bush,  and  Julius  Pratt,  felt  that  more  ought 
to  be  done  in  agitation  of  the  great  question  of  the 
day.  They  procured  the  use  of  the  basement  of  this 
church  for  a  public  lecture  by  the  Rev.  Mr.  Ludlou , 
of  New  Haven,  whose  benevolent  face,  looking  out 
from  that  picture  on  the  table,  will  command  your 
respect  and  even  love.  The  lecture  had  been  an- 
nounced from  the  pulpit,  and  the  hour  drew  near 
when  it  was  to  be  determined  whether,  under  the 
patronage  of  some  of  the  most  honored  men  of  the 
town,  there  could  be  free  speech  in  Meriden.  The 
excitement  was  intense,  the  occasion  was  important, 
and  the  aspect  of  affairs  dangerous.  A  company  of 
perhaps  a  hundred  and  fifty  were  gathered  in  that 
lower  room,  which  then  occupied  part  of  the  space  of 
the  present  lecture-room.  The  speaker  had  opened 
his  address,  when,  outside,  violent  demonstrations 


55 

begun.  The  door  was  locked  inside  and  barricaded. 
The  mob  gathered  around  it  and  banged  it  with  a 
battering-ram  from  a  neighboring  wood-pile.  The 
door  was  strong,  but  there  was  just  cause  of  alarm 
to  the  breathless  company  inside,  who  could  never 
know,  in  those  days,  to  what  desperate  violence  a 
wild  and  passionate  mob  from  a  neighboring  tavern 
might  carry  measures  against  a  defenceless  company 
of  men  and  women.  The  door  was  opened  by  those 
inside,  when  the  company  were  assaulted  with  eggs, 
the  common  missile  of  mobs  in  those  days. 

The  meeting  was  broken  up.  Violence  was  offered 
and  some  blows  dealt.  Those  who  tried  to  escape 
were  pelted  with  stones  and  eggs,  till,  as  Mr.  Ludlow 
used  to  declare,  he  himself  "  looked  like  a  big  pump- 
kin pie."  But  noble  men  like  Bush,  and  Yale,  and 
Pratt,  stood  by  him  as  a  body-guard,  walked  in  the 
face  of  the  mob  and  its  howling  threats  and  its  flying 
missiles,  into  the  street,  some  of  them  escorting  him 
clown  to  the  house  where  Mr.  Granger  then  lived,  and 
which  stands  next  north  of  the  house  of  Mr.  F.  T. 
Ives  on  Broad  street.  No  one  was  seriously  injured. 
The  coolness  of  the  men  protected  them.  One  gen- 
tleman and  his  wife  from  Berlin  were  severely  treated. 
Blows  were  struck, — one  knife  is  said  to  have  been 
drawn  in  the  confusion.  The  rioters  were  successful ; 
mob  law  had  asserted  itself.  The  excitement  involved 
the  whole  community,  and  particularly  this  church, 
around  whose  doors  the  scenes  had  been  enacted,  and 
whose  members  were  divided  in  their  views  of  ex- 
pediency on  the  main  question  and  perhaps  even  at 
that  time  in  their  sympathies.  Arthur  Granger  did 


56 

not  like  excitement,  he  had  hitherto  kept  quiet.  Now 
he  spoke  for  free  speech  as  against  the  hand  of  vio- 
lence. The  opposition  turned  itself  against  him,  and 
a  mob,  born  of  hell,  resulted  in  the  dismissal  of  a 
pastor  of  the  Congregational  church  in  Meriden. 
Mr.  Granger  withdrew.  He  went  to  Middletown, 
where  he  was  soon  settled,  and  thence  to  Providence, 
R.  I.,  where  he  also  became  pastor  of  a  church,  in 
which  office  he  died  after  a  very  short  period  of 
service. 

Mr.  Granger  was  a  man  of  very  agreeable  personal 
appearance,  stout,  with  a  full  but  intellectual  face, 
and,  if  we  may  judge  from  the  positions  to  which  he 
was  soon  called,  a  man  of  more  than  usual  pulpit 
power.  He  was  cautious  and  averse  to  disputes.  To 
this  aversion,  one,  who  seems  to  have  known  him 
intimately,  ascribes  the  readiness  with  which  he  left 
a  pastorate  which  offered  at  that  time  little  that  could 
be  attractive  to  any  but  a  man  of  strong  nerve  and 
firm  will. 

For  three  years  the  church  was  without  a  pastor, 
when  it  secured,  in  May,  1841,  the  services  of  a  man 
whom  no  mobs  could  control  and  no  opposition  could 
silence.  George  W.  Perkins  was  the  last  of  that  line 
of  pastors  who,  from  the  time  of  Theophilus  Hall, 
for  a. period  of  nearly  one  hundred  and  twenty  years, 
presided  over  an  undivided  church.  He  was  so  well 
known  to  many  of  you  that  what  I  say  of  him  here 
will  seem  tame  to  be  said,  except  to  the  younger 
portion  of  the  audience,  who  never  saw  him.  He 
was  a  man  of  remarkable  gifts.  Of  scholarly  attain- 
ments, he  took  pride  in  giving  a  character  of  literary 


57 

excellence  to  his  productions  ;  of  a  pleasant  counte- 
nance and  a  genial  temper,  he  knew  how  to  win  men  ; 
possessed  of  strong  pulpit  power,  he  commanded  the 
respect  of  his  listeners  ;  bold  of  speech,  he  did  not 
hesitate  to  emphasize  his  sentiments  ;  chastened  by 
affliction,  he  knew  the  worth  of  the  gospel  of  Jesus 
Christ  to  the  needs  of  human  hearts.  It  was  his 
strong  will  and  his  persuasive  power,  born  of  personal 
magnetism,  that  held  the  elements  of  the  church  in 
union  through  several  years  of  violent  moral  and 
political  agitations.  He  was  known  throughout  the 
State  as  a  strong  opponent  of  slavery.  It  is  said  of 
him  by  his  biographer  that  he  was,  on  that  account, 
one  of  the  most  unpopular  men  in  Connecticut ;  but 
he  was  a  man  in  whom  there  was  neither  sham  nor 
cant, — one  of  Theophilus  Hall's  downright  honest 
men, — liberal  in  his  theology  and  free  in  his  speech, 
whom  no  threats  nor  sneers  nor  coaxing  could  silence. 
His  fellow-ministers  were  tired  of  hearing  him  on  the 
old  theme  of  slavery.  Yet  they  respected  his  ability, 
and  invited  him  to  preach  the  Concio  ad  Clerum  at  one 
of  the  commencements  of  Yale  College,  on  the  sub- 
ject of  sanctification,  into  which  it  was  presumed  no 
plea  for  the  slave  could  be  brought.  But  they  had 
chosen  just  the  right  theme  for  the  man.  George 
Perkins  rose  in  his  place  to  speak.  "  Brethren,"  said 
he  to  the  astonished  listeners,  "  the  greatest  obstacle 
to  sanctification  in  the  church  of  America  is  slavery." 
The  church  prospered  under  his  ministry,  and  he 
enjoyed  his  life  in  Meriden,  though  he  was  sometimes 
obliged  to  confess  that  a  whole  year  had  been  spent 
without  a  single  apparent  conversion.  It  was  under 


58 

his  ministry  that  the  church  at  length  divided.  Of 
that  step  the  causes  lay  deeper  than  human  design. 
The  drift  of  population  towards  the  railroad,  the  in- 
terests of  property-holders,  the  apparent  inclination 
of  the  pastor,  acting  according  to  an  honest  judgment 
between  the  conflicting  claims  of  his  friends,  all  re- 
sulted in  a  final  decision, — the  temporary  excitement 
of  which  has  long  since  died  away, — to  erect  a  new 
church  in  West  Meriden.  The  records  show  at  this 
distant  day  to  the  careful  reader  a  due  degree  of  the 
spice  of  controversy  and  of  conflicting  wishes,  but 
on  the  whole  the  division  seems  to  have  been  wisely 
effected.  The  larger  portion  of  the  church  went  with 
the  pastor,  taking,  I  believe,  one-half  the  property, 
the  records  of  the  church,  and  the  fair  legal  title*  to 
be  called,  as  they  have  called  themselves,  The  First 
Congregational  Church  ;  while  they  left  to  the  old 
spot  a  band  of  noble  men  and  women  who  would  not 
desert  it ;  leaving  to  that  band  those  memories  which 

*  One,  whom  I  have  reason  to  regard  as  an  impartial  judge  upon 
this  point,  has  informed  me  since  the  above  was  writttn,  that  this 
statement  is  incorrect.  The  gentleman,  who  is  in  no  way  connected 
with  Center  church,  states  that,  as  the  law  regulating  such  matters 
then  stood,  the  legal  title  to  the  name  was  never  gained  by  the  majority 
who  went  away,  but  was  assumed  by  the  weight  of  influence.  The 
circumstances  were  peculiar.  A  majority  left  the  old  church  and  the 
minority  remained.  The  writer  thinks  that  any  one  who  is  in  the 
habit  of  attending  councils,  will  readily  see  at  this  distant  day  how 
much  better  it  would  have  been  if  those  who  went  away  had  agreed 
with  those  who  remained  upon  a  compromise,  by  which  neither  party 
should  claim  to  be  the  First,  and  each  had  adopted  some  local  name, 
which  would  not  have  perpetuated  a  vexed  question.  If  such  an 
arrangement  could  be  made  when  the  other  church  goes  into  its  new 
and  elegant  place  of  worship,  nothing  would  more  effectually  bury  the 
past  and  promote  Christian  harmony. 


59 

we  are  now  reviving,  hallowed  by  the  associations  of 
a  hundred  and  twenty  years  ;  leaving  to  it  the  echo 
of  the  voices  of  a  whole  line  of  noble  pastors,  and  all 
those  precious  traditions  which,  once  rooted  in  the 
soil,  can  never  be  torn  away  and  transplanted.  Under 
the  inspiring  shadow  of  those  traditions,  over  a  hun- 
dred members  grouped  themselves  around  the  altar 
which  their  fathers  had  builded.  Some  of  them  were 
men  of  strength,  men  who  had  given  the  weight  of 
influential  characters  to  this  growing  town.  They 
belonged  to  a  generation  almost  the  last  of  whom 
have  passed  away,  mighty  men  of  old. 

The  remaining  church  was  fortunate  in  its  first 
pastor  after  the  division.  Asahel  A.  Stevens,  now 
of  Peoria,  Illinois,  then  a  young  man,  of  engaging 
manners  and  pleasant  face,  if  I  may  judge  from  the 
likeness  which  lies  on  the  table  before  me,  joined  in 
pastoral  work  with  Mr.  Perkins  while  the  congrega- 
tions remained  together,  and  continued  in  the  vacated 
place  after  the  division.  He  remained  here  until 
1854,  when,  on  account  of  his  failing  voice,  amid  the 
regrets  of  an  affectionate  people,  he  was  dismissed. 
He  was  afterwards  invited  to  return,  but  was  com- 
pelled to  decline  the  call.  A  delightful  revival  which 
came  over  the  church  while  he  was  laboring  in  com- 
pany with  Mr.  Perkins,  was  jealously  attributed  by 
his  friends,  and  doubtless  would  have  been  attributed 
by  his  associate,  largely  to  his  youthful  zeal. 

I  shall  not  detain  you  longer,  dear  friends,  with 
details  of  this  later  church  history.  It  is  well  known 
to  most  of  you.  How  greatly  you  have  been  pros- 
pered above  your  hopes  and  faith;  with  what  labors 


6o 

my  predecessor,  beloved  by  so  many  of  you,  helped 
to  build  up  the  church  ;  and  with  what  sacrifices,  in 
the  past  few  years,  you  have  enlarged  and  beautified 
this  house  of  your  fathers,  and  how  steadily  the 
church  has  been  and  is  growing  from  those  days 
when  a  little  over  a  hundred  of  you  banded  together 
afresh,  until  now,  under  God,  you  are  strong  in  a 
membership  of  about  two  hundred  and  sixty  souls, 
all  this,  with  grateful  hearts,  ascribe  to  Him  who  has 
"  set  before  you  an  open  door." 

Once  more,  dear  friends,  before  we  step  towards 
the  long  century  which  stretches  far  away  beyond 
the  mortal  reach  of  any  of  us,  let  us  turn  to  greet 
the  past :  the  dear  and  honored  names  of  Hall,  and 
Hubbard,  and  Willard,  and  Ripley,  and  Hinsdale, 
and  Perkins,  all  dead  now  ;  the  dear  faces  of  our 
forefathers  with  their  noble  deeds  ;  the  dear  faces  of 
kindred  and  friends  who  have  gone  up  on  high.  In 
their  names,  too,  let  us  greet  the  walls  under  which 
they  have  gathered  before  us  or  with  us,  and  which  we 
hallow  for  their  sakes.  Once  more,  with  outstretched 
arms,  let  us  greet  each  other,  promising  to  "  put  on,  as 
the  elect  of  God,  holy  and  beloved,  bowels  of  mercies, 
kindness,  humbleness  of  mind,  meekness,  long  suffer- 
ing, forbearing  one  another,  forgiving  one  another;" 
once  more  let  us  greet  the  brethren  of  the  same 
household  who  have  gone  out  from  us  ;  once  more  the 
whole  church  of  God  around  us ;  and  upon  ourselves 
and  upon  them,  with  uplifted  hands,  let  us  pray:  Grace, 
mercy,  and  peace  from  God  our  Father,  and  Jesus 
Christ  our  Lord,  Amen. 


APPENDIX. 


As  the  foregoing  sermons  touch  only  very  briefly  upon  the 
pastorates  which  follow  that  of  Mr.  Stevens,  some  of  the  more 
important  features  of  the  later  history  of  the  church,  down  to 
the  present  tim.e,  are  presented  in  this  Appendix. 

Immediately  after  the  dismissal  of  Mr.  Stevens,  the  church, 
October  13,  1854,  voted  to  invite  the  Rev.  A.  S.  Cheesbrough 
"  to  supply  the  pulpit  to  the  1st  January,  1856."  Mr.  Chees- 
brough acted  as  pastor  of  the  church  during  that  period.  At 
the  present  time  he  is  preaching  in  Durham,  of  this  State, 
where,  it  is  reported,  a  revival  work  has  been  recently  de- 
veloped. 

On  the  3oth  December,  1856,  the  church  "voted  unanimously 
to  invite  Rev.  Asahel  A.  Stevens  to  return  to  us,  and  again 
become  our  pastor."  This  invitation  Mr.  Stevens,  while  cher- 
ishing for  the  church  "most  affectionate  and  grateful  remem- 
brance," was  obliged  to  refuse. 

The  Rev.  Lewis  C.  Lockwood  was  installed  pastor  of  the 
church  June  3,  1857.  This  pastorate  was  for  some  reason  un- 
fortunate, and  Mr.  Lockwood  was  dismissed  February  22,  1858, 
after  a  period  of  only  eight  months. 

At  a  meeting  of  the  church  held  on  the  25th  May,  1858,  "it 
was  voted  unanimously  that  Rev.  O.  H.  White  be  invited  to 
become  the  pastor  of  this  church  and  society."  Mr.  White 
accepted  this  invitation  so  far  as  to  become  the  acting  pastor 
of  the  church,  in  which  relation  he  continued,  without  install- 
ment, down  to  the  year  1862.  Mr.  White  afterwards  went  to 
New  Haven,  where  he  labored  with  the  Howard  Avenue  church, 
and  he  is  at  the  present  time,  or  was  recently,  in  England,  un- 
der an  appointment  of  the  American  Missionary  Association 
for  the  Freedmen. 


62 

The  Rev.  J.  J.  Woolley  was  installed  pastor  of  the  church 
October  22,  1862,  in  which  office  he  continued  until  the  i-jth 
of  August,  1871,  at  which  time,  by  advice  of  Council,  the  pas- 
toral relation  was  dissolved.  Of  him,  as  the  immediate  pre- 
decessor of  the  writer  in  the  pastoral  office,  it  is  due  him  to 
say,  that  his  great  frankness  of  manner,  his  affection  for  the 
soldiers  in  the  late  war,  in  which  he  had  acted  as  chaplain, 
and  his  general  interest  in  the  welfare  of  Meriden,  won  to  him 
a  multitude  of  friends.  His  name  ought  to  be  permanently 
associated  with  the  granite  monument  which  now  stands  in 
front  of  our  City  Hall  to  commemorate  the  soldiers  who  died 
in  the  Union  cause.  Largely  to  his  labors  we  are  indebted  for 
that  public  work. 

The  church  prospered,  particularly  in  the  earlier  part  of  his 
ministry.  The  membership  rose  during  his  pastorate  from  176 
in  1862,  to  212  in  1871 — a  net  increase  of  46  persons.  Mr. 
Woolley  removed  to  Pawtucket,  in  Rhode  Island,  where  he  is 
now  settled  over  an  important  church,  as  associate  with  the  Rev. 
C.  Blodgett,  D.  D. 

The  present  pastor  of  the  church  was  installed  February  15, 
1872.  Were  it  not  that  the  writer,  in  looking  up  the  materials 
which  enter  into  this  history,  has  learned  the  importance  of 
completeness  in  any  account  which  is  transmitted  to  the  future, 
this  narrative  would  terminate  here.  But  if  the  pastor  of  this 
church  a  hundred  years  hence,  should  undertake  anew  the  labor 
which  has  now  been  gone  through,  he  will  send  his  thanks 
back  to  his  forerunners  in  these  labors  for  a  concise  statement 
of  the  events  of  the  present  pastorate,  should  this  little  volume 
come  into  his  hands. 

The  parsonage,  in  the  front  room  of  which  these  lines  are 
being  written,  was  built  in  the  preceding  pastorate,  largely 
through  the  generosity  and  the  labors  of  Dea.  Walter  Booth, 
who  gave  the  land  and  superintended  the  building.  Very  soon 
after  the  present  pastor  was  installed,  the  church  and  society 
undertook  to  enlarge  and  beautify  their  house  of  worship.  In 
this  undertaking  the  foundations  were  removed  from  all  the 
western  portion  of  the  building ;  the  ground  was  excavated  for 
a  new  lecture-room  and  parlors,  and  the  whole  building  was 


63 

extended  twenty  feet  to  the  west.  The  interior  of  the  audience- 
room  was  thoroughly  reconstructed,  the  galleries  were  taken 
down  and  rebuilt,  the  present  organ  was  purchased,  and  the 
choir  removed  from  the  east  to  the  west  end  of  the  building. 
The  whole  cost  of  the  reconstruction,  including  decoration  and 
the  organ,  was  about  $f4,ooo,  the  whole  of  which  has  been 
paid.  The  church  has  steadily  grown  until  the  present  time  ; 
the  net  increase  being  from  213  in  1872,  to  263  in  this  month 
of  March,  1877 — a  gain  of  50. 

At  the  present  writing  the  church  is  passing  through  a  period 
of  revival,  in  which  the  entire  city  has  participated,  and  the 
results  of  which  can  not  yet  be  determined.  The  work  began 
in  a  union  of  this  church  with  the  neighboring  First  Baptist 
church,  of  which  the  Rev.  B.  O.  True  is  pastor,  the  two  churches 
laboring  together  with  the  assistance  of  the  Reverend  Evange- 
list A.  B.  Earle.  There  have  been  conversions  in  all  the 
churches — Christians  have  been  greatly  quickened,  and  a  last- 
ing impression,  it  is  believed,  has  been  made  upon  the  city. 
As  the  work  progressed,  the  Baptist,  Methodist,  and  Congrega- 
tional churches  united,  five  in  all,  assembling  together  in  entire 
disregard  of  denominational  lines. 

At  other  periods  during  the  past  five  years  the  church  has 
seemed  to  experience  a  fresh  baptism  of  the  Spirit,  but  in  gen- 
eral its  history  has  been  one  of  gradual,  and,  perhaps,  too  quiet 
development.  It  is  a  pleasure  to  write  these  lines  at  a  time 
when  the  church  seems,  at  last,  after  long  years  of  struggle 
and  of  uncertainty,  to  be  established  on  a  firm  foundation,  and 
to  be  entering  with  fresh  hopes  on  a  period  of  greater  pros- 
perity than  it  has  seen  since  the  separation  of  the  majority 
from  it. 

The  deacons  of  the  church  are  at  the  present  time  as 
follows:  BENJAMIN  II.  BOYCE,  N.  B.  WOOD,  HOBERT  H. 
SMITH,  JAMES  R.  SUTLIFF. 

The  Members  of  the  Examining  Committee,  which  is  also  an 
advisory  board  along  with  the  pastor,  are,  besides  the  above 
named  deacons,  David  Hobert,  Wm.  H.  Yale,  Mrs.  H.  N. 
Waters,  Dr.  John  Tait,  Miss  E.  A.  Landfear,  J.  R.  French. 

The  following  figures  will  show  the  rate  of  growth  of  the 
church  since  1848  : 


64 


Pastorates. 

Year. 

Males. 

Females. 

Total. 

A. 

A.  Stevens, 

1848 

44 

82 

126 

1849 

47 

83 

130 

1850 

54 

98 

'52 

1851 

55 

103 

158 

1852 

55 

IOI 

156 

1853 

56 

IOO 

156 

A. 

S.  Cheesbrough, 

1854 

70 

107 

I77 

tt 

I8SS 

68 

109 

177 

(i 

1856 

61 

107 

168 

L. 

C.  Lockwood, 

1857 

60 

IOI 

161 

0. 

H.  White, 

1858 

58 

97 

155 

a 

1859 

60 

93 

i53 

« 

1860 

64 

1  02 

166 

a 

1861 

69 

85 

154 

J. 

J.  Woolley, 

1862 

67 

109 

176 

« 

1863 

68 

IOO 

1  68 

« 

1864 

71 

123 

194 

« 

1865 

73 

130 

203 

ci 

1866 

73 

126 

199 

u 

1867 

70 

123 

i93 

« 

1868 

90 

152 

242 

u 

1869 

80 

135 

215 

« 

1870 

81 

132 

213 

(( 

1871 

81 

J31 

212 

Edward  Hungerford, 

1872 

78 

135 

2I3 

(( 

1873 

80 

138 

218 

« 

1874 

82 

161 

243 

c< 

1875 

86 

170 

256 

u 

1876 

87 

i75 

262 

REV.  JOHN   HUBBARD'S    CONFESSION   OF  FAITH, 

Copied  from  a  printed  pamphlet  in  the  Historical  Society 
at  Hartford,  bearing  the  following  title  : 

THE  TRANSACTIONS  OF  THE  COUNCIL  CALLED 

FOR  THE 

ORDINATION  OF  MR.  JOHN  HUBBARD, 
At  MERIDEX,  December  29,  1767, 

AND  THE  CONSOCIATION  OF  THE  COUNTY  OF  NEW  HAVEN, 
CONVENED  THERE  AT  THE  SAME  TIME. 

NEW  HAVEN.     Printed  and  sold  by  THOMAS  and  SAMUEL  GREEN, 
at  their  Printing  Office  in  the  Old  State  House. 


Mr.  Hubbard's  Confession  of  His  Christian  Faith,  Exhibited 
to  the  Council. 

I  believe  there  is  one  God  supreme,  possessed  of  all  possible 
perfection,  excellency,  and  glory,  the  Almighty  maker  of  heaven 
and  earth,  and  that  He  not  only  made  but  constantly  exercises 
a  universal  providence  and  superintendency  over  all  the  works 
of  His  hands.  That  all  things  possible  are  beheld  by  His  all- 
seeing  mind  in  one  view,  and  that  all  things  are  under  His  abso- 
lute control  ;  not  a  sparrow  falls  to  the  ground  without  our 
Heavenly  Father;  and  that  God  worketh  all  things  according 
to  the  counsel  of  His  will. 

I  believe  in  Jesus  Christ,  the  second  person  in  the  blessed 
Trinity  ;  the  brightness  of  the  Father's  glory,  that  being  in  the 
form  of  God  He  thought  it  no  robbery  to  be  equal  with  God, 
and  that  as  He  was  in  the  beginning  with  God,  so  He  was  God. 

I  believe  in  the  Eternal  Spirit,  or  Holy  Ghost,  the  Father 
underived,  the  Son  begotten  of  the  Father,  the  Holy  Ghost 
proceeding  from  the  Father  and  Son,  and  that  they  are  all 
possessed  of  divine  power  and  glory. 

I  believe  that  the  moral  government  of  God   Most  High  is 

6* 


66 

absolutely  perfect,  and  His  whole  administration  without  error. 
That  God  created  all  things  by  Jesus  Christ,  for  the  manifesta- 
tion of  His  glorious  perfections.  I  believe  that  God  created 
man  in  His  own  image,  and  made  him  upright,  endowed  him 
with  the  noble  powers  of  reason  and  understanding,  and  placed 
him  at  the  head  of  this  lower  world  ;  forbid  him  to  eat  of  the 
fruit  of  the  tree  of  knowledge  of  good  and  evil,  upon  pain  of 
death  ;  that  he  rebelled  against  the  express  prohibition  of  God, 
and  judgment  came  not  only  upon  him,  but  upon  all  his  pos- 
terity to  condemnation,  and  so  death  passeth  upon  all  for  that 
all  have  sinned  ;  he  being  the  parent  and  head  of  the  race,  his 
transgression  was  imputed  to  them,  and  they  suffered  the  evil 
consequences  of  his  transgression,  or  they  were  made  sinners. 
That  God  did  not  leave  all  to  perish  under  the  ruins  of  the 
apostacy,  but  so  loved  the  world  that  He  gave  His  only  begotten 
Son,  that  whosoever  believeth  in  Him  should  not  perish,  but 
have  everlasting  life.  This  glorious  and  divine  Personage,  at 
the  appointment  of  the  Father,  when  the  fullness  of  time  was 
come,  assumed  our  nature,  taught  mankind  the  way  of  God  in 
truth,  opened  the  plan  of  mercy,  the  designs  of  God's  grace  to 
our  lost  and  ignorant  race.  I  believe  that  He  died  upon  the 
cross,  an  expiation  for  sin,  that  the  Father  laid  on  Him  the 
iniquities  of  us  all,  and  that  He  bore  our  sins  in  His  own  body 
on  the  tree,  offering  himself  through  the  Eternal  Spirit  to  God, 
without  spot,  and  that  the  blood  of  His  cross,  or  His  obedience 
to  death  and  perfect  sacrifice  is  the  meritorious  ground  upon 
which  pardon  is  bestowed  upon  sinners,  or  that  by  Him  we 
have  redemption  through  His  blood,  the  forgiveness  of  sin,  ac- 
cording to  the  exceeding  riches  of  God's  grace.  That  He  rose 
from  the  dead,  ordered  that  repentance  and  remission  of  sin 
should  be  preached  to  all  nations,  ascended  upon  high,  received 
gifts  for  men,  is  seated  at  the  right  hand  of  the  Majesty  on 
high;  sent  down  the  Holy  Spirit  upon  the  apostles,  and  ever 
lives  to  make  intercession  for  His  people.  And  as  the  whole 
human  race  are  born  of  the  flesh,  and  find  a  law  in  their  mem- 
bers warring  against  the  law  of  their  mind,  and  bringing  them 
into  captivity  to  the  law  of  sin,  so  in  order  to  their  eternal  salva- 
tion by  Christ,  I  believe  it  is  absolutely  necessary  that  they  be 


6; 

regenerated  or  born  again ;  this  moral  change  I  believe  is 
effected  by  the  Spirit  of  God,  through  the  truth,  or  that  they 
are  born  of  incorruptible  seed  by  the  word  of  God,  which  liveth 
and  abideth  for  ever.  The  necessary  conditions  of  acceptance 
on  the  sinner's  part  are,  repentance  towards  God,  and  faith  to- 
wards our  Lord  Jesus  Christ ;  in  which  are  included,  or  from 
which  flow  all  the  graces  of  Christianity;  for  the  gift  and  exer- 
cise of  which  they  are  indebted  to  God,  they  are  His  gifts. 
Yet  in  the  ordinary  method  of  God's  grace,  they  are  obtained 
by  a  diligent  use  of  all  the  means  God  hath  appointed  in  His 
Word,  and  that  in  the  neglect  of  these  we  have  no  warrant 
from  the  Word  of  God  to  expect  the  saving  blessings  of  His 
grace.  I  believe  the  necessity  of  the  sanctification  of  the 
Spirit,  as  well  as  the  belief  of  the  truth,  in  order  to  our  enjoy- 
ment of  the  favor  of  God  hereafter,  and  the  possession  of  those 
mansions  which  Christ  by  His  obedience  and  death  hath  pur- 
chased, and  is  now  gone  to  prepare  for  the  heirs  of  salvation, 
for  without  this  none  shall  see  God.  I  believe  that  all  those 
who  are  called  according  to  God's  purpose,  are  particularly 
foreknown  and  predestinated,  and  justified  upon  account  of  the 
righteousness  of  Christ,  depended  upon  by  them,  and  imputed 
to  them,  they  receiving  Him  as  exhibited  to  them,  as  the  Lord 
their  righteousness,  and  they  shall  be  glorified,  and  that  neither 
death  nor  life,  nor  angels,  nor  principalities,  nor  powers,  nor 
things  present  nor  things  to  come,  nor  height,  nor  depth,  nor 
any  other  creature  shall  be  able  to  separate  them  from  the  love 
of  God,  which  is  in  Christ  Jesus.  And  in  the  important  busi- 
ness of  religion,  weak,  insufficient  man  is  absolutely  dependent 
upon  the  influence  of  the  Spirit  of  God.  For  it  is  God  that  works 
in  us,  both  to  will  and  to  do,  and  without  the  grace  and  strength 
of  Christ,  we  can  do  nothing,  but  through  Christ's  strengthening 
of  us,  we  can  do  all  tilings.  And  that  all  necessary  grace  is  pur- 
chased by  Christ,  and  freely  offered  to  men  with  the  call  of 
the  Gospel  ;  so  that  all  who  live  ungodly,  and  die  impenitently, 
must  take  the  blame  to  themselves,  and  ascribe  their  eternal 
damnation  not  to  any  constitution  of  heaven,  or  deficiency  of 
God,  or  the  Redeemer,  but  to  their  own  perverseness  and  ob- 
stinacy ;  and  their  own  consciences  must  for  ever  vindicate  the 


68 

righteousness  of  God  in  their  perdition,  while  on  the  other 
hand  those  who  by  the  grace  of  God  comply  with  the  offers  of 
His  mercy,  will  for  ever  ascribe  their  salvation  to  the  pure, 
rich,  and  unmerited  love  of  God  and  the  grace  of  our  Lord 
Jesus  Christ,  who  loved  them,  and  washed  them  in  His  blood. 
I  believe  the  resurrection  of  the  dead,  and  that  God  hath  ap- 
pointed a  day  in  the  which  he  will  judge  the  world  in  righteous- 
ness, by  Jesus  Christ,  whom  He  hath  ordained  judge,  both  of 
quick  and  dead,  who  will  render  to  every  one,  according  to  the 
deeds  done  in  the  body,  whether  good  or  bad.  That  the 
righteous  will  be  received  to  glory  and  the  wicked  punished 
with  everlasting  destruction  from  the  presence  of  the  Lord  and 
the  glory  of  His  power.  These  I  take  to  be  taught  in  God's 
Holy  Word,  which  I  believe  to  be  the  only  rule  for  Christians. 

MERIDEN,  Jan.  i,  1768. 

This  is  the  confession  of  faith  read  by  Mr.  John  Hub- 
bard,  Jr. 

Test:  JOHN  DEVOTION,  Scribe. 

Jan.  I,  1768. — After  reading  and  delivering  in  the  foregoing 
confession  of  faith,  Mr.  Hubbard  gave  answers  to  questions 
that  were  asked  him,  as  follows  : 

Q.  In  your  confession  of  faith,  speaking  of  Christ,  you  say 
that  He  was  in  the  beginning  with  God.  What  do  you  mean 
there,  by  in  the  beginning? 

Ans.     Before  all  time  ;  coeval  with  the  Father. 

Q.     What  do  you  mean  by  saying,  Christ  is  God  ? 

Ans.  That  He  is  properly  a  divine  person,  possessed  of 
divine  glory. 

Q.  What  is  meant  by  the  Spirit's,  or  Holy  Ghost's,  pro- 
ceeding from  the  Father  and  the  Son  ? 

Ans.  He  proceeds  in  a  manner  different  from  what  any 
creatures  do,  and  in  such  a  manner  that  he  is  strictly  eternal. 

Q.  As  there  are  Three  Persons  in  the  Godhead,  are  they 
all  properly  speaking  One  God? 

Ans.    Yes. 

Q.     How  are  we  sinners  by  Adam's  transgression  ?     Is  it 


69 

as  \ve  stand  related  to  him  as  the  head  of  the  family  ?  and  so 
do  we  derive  from  him  family  or  relative  guilt  ? 

Ans.     Yes. 

Q.  Do  you  believe  that  in  consequence  of  the  sovereign 
judgment  of  God,  whereby  we  are  all  subjected  to  death,  all 
mankind  would  have  been  finally  ruined  and  for  ever  lost,  if  a 
Mediator  had  not  been  provided  ? 

Ans.     Yes. 

Q.  Do  you  believe  that  if  any  of  the  human  race  are  deliv- 
ered from  this  state  of  guilt,  condemnation,  and  death,  it  is  by 
the  sovereign  grace  of  God,  on  account  of  the  righteousness  of 
Christ  ? 

Ans.    Yes. 

Q.  Do  you  suppose  that  the  present  state  of  human  nature 
is  such,  that  without  the  influence  of  the  Spirit  and  grace  of 
God  we  should  live  and  grow  up  in  wickedness,  and  finally 
perish  ? 

Ans.     Yes. 

Q.  Do  you  suppose  that  these  influences  of  the  Spirit 
would  have  been  given  to  any  if  it  had  not  been  for  the  pur- 
chase of  Christ  ? 

Ans.     No. 

Q.  By  liberty  do  you  mean  that  we  have  a  natural  and  prac- 
tical ability  to  do  all  that  is  required  of  us  in  order  to  salvation,, 
without  the  special  influence  of  the  Spirit  of  God  ? 

Ans.  No.  By  saying  we  have  liberty  of  will,  I  mean  no 
more  than  that  we  have  such  liberty  as  to  constitute  us  moral 
agents  and  accountable  creatures. 

Q.  Do  you  believe  that  by  the  new  covenant  and  promise 
of  God  saints  have  secured  to  them  all  that  is  necessary  to  their 
perseverance  and  final  salvation  ? 

Ans.    Yes. 

Q.  Do  you  suppose  the  promise  of  God  is  so  to  be  under- 
stood as  to  secure  assistance  in  the  neglect  of  duty? 

Ans.     No. 

Q.  Do  you  suppose  the  good  works  of  believers  are  the 
ground  of  their  right  and  title  to  eternal  life  ? 

Ans.     No. 


Q.  Are  the  good  works  of  believers  the  ground  of  their 
election  to  eternal  life  ? 

Ans.     No.     But  the  mere  grace  and  mercy  of  God. 

Q.  Do  you  believe  that  any  works  done,  or  that  can  be  done, 
by  natural  men,  are  accepted  as  gracious  works? 

Ans.     No. 

Q.  What  do  you  understand  by  regeneration,  or  conver- 
sion ? 

Ans.  It  is  a  change  of  both  heart  and  life  from  sin  to  holi- 
ness by  the  influence  of  the  Spirit  of  God. 

Q  Is  there  an  inward  change  previously  necessary  to  the 
performance  of  good  works  acceptable  to  God  ? 

Ans.    Yes. 

Q.  Do  you  not  suppose  that  God  has  predetermined  the 
final  condemnation  of  impenitent  sinners  in  consequence  of  His 
foresight  of  their  willful  wickedness  ? 

Ans.    Yes. 

Q.  Does  not  true  faith  include  (over  and  above  an  assent  to 
gospel  truth)  a  dependence  upon  Christ  for  salvation  ? 

Ans.    Yes. 

Q.  How  is  this  faith  wrought  ?  Is  it  not  by  the  influence 
of  the  Spirit  of  God  given  by  Christ  ? 

Ans.    Yes. 

Q.  Tho'  it  is  by  the  influence  of  the  Spirit  of  God  that 
any  are  enabled  truly  to  believe  and  do  works  spiritually  good, 
yet  does  this  destroy  moral  agency  ? 

Ans.     No. 

These  are  the  questions  asked  by  the  council,  and  answers 
given  by  Mr.  Hubbard.  in  the  audience  of  a  large  concourse, 
with  full  liberty,  publicly  offered  to  any,  to  ask  any  other  ques- 
tions, or  to  have  an  explanation  of  those  already  asked. 

Test:  JOHN  DEVOTION,  Scribe. 

The  council  (besides  the  foregoing  transactions  with  the 
consociation),  having  received  particular  and  full  information 
of  the  state  of  the  church  and  society  in  Meriden,  came  to  the 
following  result  on  Friday  evening,  Jan.  i,  viz  : 


That  altho'  in  our  opinion,  it  is  the  undoubted  and  unaliena- 
ble  right  of  every  church  to  choose  their  own  pastor,  or  in- 
structor, in  righteousness,  and  altho'  Mr.  Hubbard  appears 
to  be  well  qualified  to  do  service  in  the  churches  of  our  Lord 
Jesus  Christ,  both  as  to  his  abilities  and  religious  sentiments, 
(so  far  as  we  have  been  acquainted  with  them  by  his  examina- 
tion and  confession  of  faith)  if  he  should  be  improved  therein  ; 
yet,  considering  the  broken  and  divided  state  of  this  church 
and  society,  and  other  unhappy  circumstances,  we  don't  see 
our  way  clear  to  proceed  to  his  ordination  at  present. 

Passed  in  council 

Test:  JOHN  DEVOTION,),. 

JOHN  WHITING,     ^ 

This  is,  I  believe,  the  first  time  that  the  above  confession 
and  examination  of  John  Hubbard  have  been  reproduced.  It 
has  been  a  matter  of  great  interest  to  learn,  over  what  heresy 
this  church  and  the  colony  were  so  long  kept  in  turmoil.  The 
supposition,  offered  in  the  second  of  the  foregoing  sermons, 
that  there  was  nothing  in  Mr.  Ilubbard's  belief  which  would 
render  him  unacceptable  to  any  congregation  of  ordinary  intel- 
ligence at  the  present  day,  seems  to  be  fully  confirmed  by  the 
discovery  of  this  document.  The  Confession  of  Faith  is  pre- 
ceded in  the  pamphlet  by  the  correspondence  between  the 
consociation  and  the  council.  The  council  met  at  "  Madam 
Hall's,"  probably  meaning  the  home  of  Theophilus  Hall's 
widow,  on  the  present  Avery  Hall  place.  The  consociation  met 
at  some  place  not  specified,  but  two  miles  distant  from  the 
council. 


72 

BASIS  OF  CHURCH  MEMBERSHIP. 
At  a  church  meeting  held   May  I,  1873,  it  was  voted,  with 
but  one  dissenting  voice,  to  do  away  with  the  previously  exist- 
ing doctrinal  basis  of  church  membership,  and  to  substitute 
for  it  the  following 

FORM  OF  CHRISTIAN  PROFESSION  AND  COVENANT, 
to  which,  alone,  applicants  for  admission  to  the  church  are  re- 
quired, after  examination  by  the  committee  and  acceptance  by 
vote  of  the  church,  to  give  consent  : 

CHRISTIAN    PROFESSION. 

In  presenting  yourself  (yourselves)  for  membership  in  Christ's 
Church,  you  do  now  publicly  profess  your  hearty  faith  in  God, 
who  is  revealed  to  us  in  the  gospel  as  Our  Father  in  Heaven  ; 
and  in  Jesus  Christ  His  only  begotten  Son — the  Saviour  of  the 
world, — who  died  for  our  transgressions  and  rose  again  from 
the  dead,  and  humbly  confessing  your  sins,  you  do  now  in  the 
presence  of  these  witnesses  solemnly  avow  the  consecration  of 
yourself  (yourselves)  to  God  and  His  service  in  the  observance 
of  all  His  commandments  as  set  forth  in  His  Holy  Word  ;  de- 
pending on  the  gracious  influences  of  His  Spirit  for  your  com- 
fort and  strengthening  in  all  godliness. 

COVENANT   WITH    THE   CHURCH. 

You  do  also  covenant  to  walk  with  this  Church  in  Christian 
fellowship  and  in  the  conscientious  performance  of  the  mutual 
obligations  of  its  members  and  in  the  ordinances  which  Christ 
has  enjoined  to  be  observed  by  His  people.  You  engage  to  be 
subject  to  the  discipline  of  Christ's  Church  in  general  and  this 
in  particular,  so  long  as  God  continues  you  here. 

RECEPTION  BY  THE  CHURCH. 

We  then,  the  Church  of  Christ  in  this  place,  declare  you  to 
be  a  member  of  Christ's  Church  in  general,  and  this  in  particu- 
lar ;  and  promise  by  divine  help  to  treat  you  with  such  affection 
and  watchfulness  as  your  sacred  relation  to  us  requires.  This 
we  promise,  imploring  of  our  Lord  that  both  we  and  you  may 
obtain  mercy  to  be  faithful  in  his  covenant  and  glorify  Him  by 
the  holiness  which  becometh  His  house  for  ever. 


73 

DATE  OF  ORGANIZATION. 

The  following  Preamble  and  Resolution,  setting  forth  the 
facts  relating  to  the  date  of  organization  of  this  church,  were 
adopted  in  a  full  meeting  of  the  church,  held  on  Easter  Sun- 
day, April  i,  1877: 

WHEREAS,  At  the  time  of  the  separation  of  the  majority 
from  this  church,  in  the  year  1848,  a  strong  pressure  was 
brought  to  bear  upon  this  church  to  induce  it  to  yield  its  title 
to  be  considered  a  church  without  a  new  organization,  as  is 
shown  by  the  following  resolutions  passed  at  different  times 
and  entered  upon  the  records,  as  also  by  an  act  of  the  council 
ordaining  the  Rev.  A.  A.  Stevens  pastor  over  this  church, 
which  resolutions  and  act  of  council  are  as  follows,  namely  : 

'•  At  a  meeting  of  brethren  of  the  Congregational  Church  in 
Meriden,  held  in  the  basement  of  their  church  on  the  I3th  day 
of  January,  1848,  the  following  preamble  and  resolution  were 
presented  and  passed  unanimously  : 

'•  WHEREAS,  A  majority  of  this  church,  together  with  the 
pastor,  have  left  us  and  taken  the  church  records  ;  therefore, 

"Resolved,  That  in  consequence  thereof,  the  regular  administration  of  public  wor- 
ship and  religious  ordinances  will  not  be  suspended  in  this  house  ;  but  that  we  who 
remain,  now  proceed  with  our  present  '  Confession  of  Faith  and  Covenant,'  in  all 
church  duties  and  ordinances:  " 

this  preamble  and  resolution  being  marked  upon  the  record 
as  "  rescinded  Jan.  24,"  and  the  action  of  the  next  meeting  be- 
ing recorded  as  follows  : 

"  Monday,  Jan.  24,  1848. 

"  The  brethren  of  the  church  met  agreeable  to  vote  of  the 
last  meeting. 

"  The  first  preamble  and  resolution  passed  at  the  last  meet- 
ing were  reconsidered  and  rescinded,  and  the  following  pream- 
ble and  resolution  were  passed  unanimously  : 

"WHEREAS,  A  majority  of  this  church  have  voted  to  re- 
move to  their  new  meeting-house,  and  the  pastor  has  given 
notice  to  that  effect,  and  also  given  notice  that  his  relation  as 
pastor  to  us  who  remain  feas  closed,  therefore, 

7 


74 

"Resolved,  That  we  still  are  a  Church  of  Christ;  and  though  for  substantial 
reasons  we  waive  our  rights  as  being  THE  Congregational  Church  of  Meriden,  and 
we  hereby  assume  the  name  of,  and  will  hereafter  be  known  as,  the  Center  Congre- 
gational Church  of  Meriden,  and  still  holding  to  our  church  '  Covenant  and  Confes- 
sion of  Faith,'  will  go  forward  with  the  ordinances  regularly  administered :  " 

this   resolution  not  having  been  rescinded,  the   record  goes 
on  as  follows  : 

"Another  meeting  was  called  Feb.  17,  1848.  The  follow- 
ing preamble  and  vote  were  then  passed  : 

"  WHEREAS,  A  majority  of  the  Congregational  Church  of 
Meriden  have  built  and  occupied  their  new  house  of  worship, 
and  whereas  the  former  house  is  preferable  to  us,  therefore, 

"Resolved,  That  we  who  remain  to  worship  in  the  old  house,  do  associate  and  pro- 
ceed as  a  Church  of  Christ,  by  the  name  of  the  Center  Congregational  Church  of 
Meriden,  with  the  present  '  Covenant  and  Confession  of  Faith,'  to  sustain  all  church 
duties  and  ordinances." 

"  The  above  resolution  was  passed  in  consideration  of  the 
following  declaration  of  the  pastor  of  the  Congregational 
Church  : 

"  If  the  preceding  vote  should  be  passed,  I  should  feel  au- 
thorized to  comply  with  the  wishes  of  those  who  assent  to  it, 
and  enter  their  names  on  our  record  as  having  their  connection 
with  us  terminated.  G.  W.  PERKINS." 

"March  15,  1848. 

"  At  an  Ecclesiastical  Council  convened  at  the  house  of  the 
Center  Congregational  Church,  by  letters  missive  from  the 
Center  Congregational  Church  in  Meriden,  to  take  into  consid- 
eration the  expediency  of  ordaining  to  the  gospel  ministry  Mr. 
Asahel  A.  Stevens,  an  inquiry  was  then  made  by  the  council 
into  the  authority  of  the  brethren  calling  this  council  to  act  as 
a  Church  of  Christ ;  whereupon  it  was  resolved  that  in  view  of 
the  following  act  of  organization,  without  reference  to  any  pre- 
vious documents,  viz : 

"  WHEREAS  a  majority  of  the  Congregational  Church  of 
Meriden  have  built  and  occupied  their  new  house  of  worship, 
and  whereas  the  former  house  is  preferable  to  us  ;  therefore, 

"Resolved,  That  we  who  remain  to  worship  in  the  old  house  do  associate  and  pro- 
ceed as  a  Church  of  Christ,  by  the  name  of  the  Center  Congregational  Church  of 
Meriden,  with  the  present  'Covenant  and  Confession  of  Faith,'  to  sustain  all  church 
duties  and  ordinances." 


75 

"This  council  recognize  the  brethren  so  agreeing  as  having 
thereby  become  a  duly  organized  Church  of  Christ." 

And  WHEREAS,  From  the  first  two  resolutions,  and  from  the 
ambiguous  language  of  the  third  resolution,  in  which  the  non- 
ecclesiastical  term  "associate,"  is  carefully  chosen  as  an  am- 
biguous term,  agreed  upon  by  the  parties  purposely  to  avoid 
the  usual  word  "organize,"  it  is  evident  that  this  church  re- 
garded itself  as  never  having  ceased  to  be  a  church  since  the 
original  organization  in  1729; 

And  WHEREAS,  By  the  concurrent  testimony  of  those  still 
living  among  us,  who  were  conversant  with  the  doings  of  that 
time,  and  some  of  whom  were  present  at  the  council,  it  appears 
that  the  church  had  not  previous  to  the  council  conceded — nor 
did  it,  notwithstanding  the  language  of  the  council  (which  lan- 
guage was  purely  the  council's  own,  and  in  no  way  binding 
upon  the  church),  at  the  time  of  the  council  concede,  nor  has 
it  since  conceded  that  it  has  ever  ceased  to  be  a  church,  nor  has 
it  ever  had  an  organization  since  1729: 

Therefore,  in  the  light  of  this  history,  and  for  the  informa- 
tion of  the  public, 

Resolved,  That  we  do  as  did  our  fathers,  date  the  organiza- 
tion of  this  church  from  the  year  of  our  Lord.  1729. 

Attest : 

GEO.  E.  FLINT,  Clerk. 


